


it's not easy facing up, when your whole world is black

by OhHiImSociallyAwkward



Series: no place like home [1]
Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: (i keep changing his age bc the timeline is still in the works), 1.16 The Nether Update (Minecraft), ANTARCTICA TIME BABY, Angst, Angst and Humor, Animal Death, Attempt at Humor, Blood, Blood and Injury, Bonding, Breaking the Fourth Wall, Child Abuse, Childhood, Childhood Trauma, Demon Darryl Noveschosch, Demon Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF), Demons, Diamond Golem Skeppy, Diamond Golem Zak Ahmed, Dreams, Enderman, Fighting, Foreshadowing, Gen, Graphic Description of Corpses, How Do I Tag, Humor, Injury, King Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), King Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), Light Angst, Minor Character Death, Near Death Experiences, No Smut, POV Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), Paranoia, Phil is a nerd, Piglin Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), Platonic Relationships, Platonic Zak Ahmed/Darryl Noveschosch, Pre-Canon, Technoblade & Phil Watson Friendship (Video Blogging RPF), Technoblade Hears Voices (Video Blogging RPF), Technoblade-centric (Video Blogging RPF), The Nether (Minecraft), Trans Floris | Fundy, Unreliable Narrator, Violence, Winged Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), anarchy comes later, anime techno is not here, at most he is like 2 and a half inches taller than skeppy, but he is NOT 9'6, but is like 16/17 by piglin standards, but its FINE im fine, chapter 14 has tommy and fundy!!!, didnt know that was a tag, fundy is a baby, golden foods grow naturally in the nether, he is a PIGMAN, he kills a hoglin, hes a half demon, hoglins die but what are they good for anyway, hypixel is a city, i believe in tallboyhalo supremacy, i made up lore about respawning and how friend had infinite canon lives, i write them as platonic but you can take it as romantic i guess, im in my computer science class rn and am not paying attention, jschlatt is a ram, mobs mature faster than humans, phil is a bird man lol, philza is old, techno and phil share one brain cell and they dropped it in lava, techno is NOT phil's son, techno leaves the nether in chapter 3, techno sees a dead body but doesn't stay looking at it that long, technoblade is 8, technoblade runs away from responsibility but for a good reason, they are referenced but not described, they finally meet in chapter 6!!!!!, when characters show up they will be tagged, wilbur and tommy have brother energy except will refuses to acknowledge it, wilbur is phil's biological son, yea those are canon here, yeah piglins aren't that great at taking care of children, you know those videos skeppy makes where ppl can win money?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-13 16:46:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 16
Words: 51,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29156808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OhHiImSociallyAwkward/pseuds/OhHiImSociallyAwkward
Summary: The blade, and how he came to be.Or: Technoblade’s life, told by others and himself.
Relationships: Darryl Noveschosch & Phil Watson, Dave | Technoblade & Darryl Noveschosch, Dave | Technoblade & Original Character(s), Floris | Fundy & TommyInnit, Floris | Fundy & Wilbur Soot, Jschlatt & Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), Sapnap & Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), Technoblade & Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Wilbur Soot & Phil Watson, Wilbur Soot & Technoblade, Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit, Wilbur Soot/Original Female Character(s), Wilbur Soot/Sally the Salmon, Zak Ahmed & Darryl Noveschosch, Zak Ahmed & Phil Watson, is that even a tag - Relationship, its wilbur and sally
Series: no place like home [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2140287
Comments: 58
Kudos: 257





	1. everybody better march in time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The beginnings of a God.
> 
> or perhaps, a man.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haahahahhaaha i made a minecraft fic.
> 
> ok so this is technoblade backstory, i really liked writing it. um also the narrator for the first half of the chapter is not technoblade, im sure you can guess who it is based on the tags
> 
> anyway, hope you enjoy!

In the sweltering heat of the Nether, a Piglin is born.

Born in a Bastion over-looking a large lava lake in the hottest part of a cycle the Nether goes through. Usually, a Piglin being born would not be of a big significance but born during the hottest cycle of the Nether signifies a great fire and anger within. This Piglin will surely be a brute.

_Surely._

\---

The Piglin born in the hottest of cycles spends most of his time away from other piglets of the litter. You see, this Piglin did not enjoy interacting with the other Piglets, nor when a fight broke out between the young hogs did he join in. Unless it involved him, he did not care. He enjoyed drawing snouts on the few scraps of cloth and paper he managed to scrounge up in the Bastion, he enjoyed watching the Piglin brutes fight for dominates from afar as if not to disturb them. he watched as the caregivers of the Piglets sewed new clothes for the new arrivals and for the ones that ripped. He was just not involved.

When he was involved though, oh how they the young ones trembled.

If they had ripped his paper or approached him as he watched the violent nature of the brutes or interrupted the caregiver’s sewing while he was watching, he would come out of his quiet little shell. He would show them something that the elders had predicted in the moments that he was born. He would fight like a brute. You see, brutes had a different nature, a violent nature if you will. Now, one could argue that all Piglins had a violent nature, and, while that is true, Piglin brutes are much more than that. While some groups of Piglins will leave the Bastion and travel through the harsher climates of the Nether, usually young teens that have not yet found their place, Piglin brutes will stay in the Bastion. They are the protectors, the ones who are the strongest, the most dominant, they protect the sounder from outsiders. They do not have an affinity for gold, although they know how to mold it into the perfect weapon for chopping, as they are preoccupied with keeping the group of swine from any threat even if it costs them their life. Brutes are also responsible for the _removing_ of the weak.

Now, you may be wondering what all these facts have to do with our young piglet here, well. It has to do with his nature, of course! Piglins are violent, but the Nether is violent back. When this little piggy had given into the violent nature of the Nether, the older Piglins watched as their little soldier fought like a true brute.

\---  
When the third cycle of this Piglins life rolled around his life began to change. No longer could he watch the caregivers sew new clothes from the hides of Hoglins, and no longer could he find enough time away to draw the snouts of his brethren on the scraps of paper lying about. For when a Piglin comes of age, they will be able to start to learn how to properly fight. Of course, the young Piglins have already had a few battles amongst themselves though none of them had truly been in a real one.

The Piglin elders watched on with great pride as the young trained among the brutes and learned the true value of gold from the barters. Surely, these young will be the next generation of Piglin warriors.

_Surely_

\---

Now in this story, you have read this a lot, but you may now be wondering where _our_ little piglet is. Well, this little Piglet had not taken part in most of the fighting. In fact, he had specifically stayed away from the fights. Obviously, this did not last long. He was born in the hottest cycle in the Nether, he must fight, or he will be left to die. So, no matter how hard he tried, no matter how long he hid or ran from the elders and brutes or tried to run from them when they dragged him to the pit. He couldn’t escape, and he wouldn’t. Well, not yet at least, but that’s later.

\---

In the Nether, mobs of all shapes and sizes are violent ( _except Endermen, but they are not from here_ ). The Nether is violent. She gives no mercy to those who cannot stand her heat, which makes the mobs that can even more merciless. With Piglins, being one of the mobs that have some sentience ( _besides demons, but no one talks about them_ ), they are arguably the most dangerous. Being able to construct Bastons from materials that are scarce as it is. They show no empathy to other creatures, especially if they happen to stumble across the Bastion.

Which is why they have no patience for the weak.

Our Piglet, being forced into a life he was not deserving of, is an example of this. Being forced away from drawing snouts on the walls or pieces of scrap, or watching the caregivers sew for the newborns and the rips in the older's clothing, or watching the far away creator out of the windows of the structure. This Piglin was destined to be a fierce warrior and he was going to be.

For the next cycle, he will train to be the best of the best. To beat all others, and all challenges.

He will not fail.

\---

A commonplace thing in the Piglin life is hunting parties, a group of four or more usually consists of barters traveling to get a lay of the land as well as materials. Though it is rare, sometimes the elders of the sounder of swine will send a brute to oversee the hunt and gain experience. This time, our beloved Piglet has been sent out. At only 6 cycles old, he will learn with the rest, under the watch of a grown barter Piglin. The grown Piglin will watch from afar and step in if the Piglet’s lives are majorly threatened.

The group of Piglets travel through the Crimson biome, hoping to have a run-in with a few Hoglins. Hopefully, they will, as a hunt like that will feed the sounder of swine for half a cycle. 

Well, let’s hope no surprises happen…

\---

A surprise happens.

Since the Nether is a strange place, filled with lava and heat, not many people visit. Unless they use it for travel or gather materials, the common person wouldn’t know a lot about it ( _unless they read about it, but that would mean someone had to write about it, and what poor soul would want to do that?_ ). One of the biomes that most common folks avoided when traveling through the Nether is the soul sand valley. In the over-world, there are rumors that if you spend too long walking the almost endless valley you will become one with soil and sand. This is not true, as the only real way to become one with the landscape is to talk to the wandering souls of the valley. 

What wandering souls you ask? Why, demons of course!

Demons, made from the hottest burning soul fire and the lost memories of the living, are one of the things that Piglin steer clear of. Souls are one of the most precious resources that any living thing could hold, it is the living force that gives the living mind a conscience. The thing that drives a living thing to create, without it nothing has that sense of living. Without it, a mob has nothing but the simple drive to survive and provide for one’s species.

Why do you need to know this? Well, as it was said two paragraphs ago, a surprise happened! Surely you can guess what happened based on what you’ve been told so far.

The four Piglets, three that were destined to barter and our little Piglet, were walking with the little brute in front of the group looking out for food. Two of the young barters snorting and squealing behind the two quiet ones ahead.

The two squabbling Piglins fall towards the third, which in turn makes them fall into the taller of the four. When they hit the ground, the brute is kicking them off and brandishes his knife, pointing it at the smaller Piglins and squealing loudly. Even if you were unfamiliar with their language, you would be able to tell that this young man is clearly upset with his companions.

Now you may know that if you are to hunt something, you have to stay quiet. Well, Piglins, especially their young, are not very smart. Though they are a strong race, they do not have the minds of a scholar, nor the capacity to think beyond their survival instincts.

A few paragraphs back, you had read about a species that not a lot of people would pay attention to ( _you may remember their name_ ). The screaming and squealing of the Piglins had attracted the very mob you had read about, a demon.

This was a weird occurrence since demons usually stick to wandering around in the soul sand valley. Once in a while, they will wander into a different biome but either find what they’re looking for and leave or turn right back around. Considering that the nearest soul sand valley was a crimson and a warped forest away, the Piglin barter that was following far from behind had not intended for them to meet any other mobs on this journey.

While the young brute was ranting about how irresponsible the other three are and how it could cost them a meal, out from the shadows of the crimson fungus, creeped a being that was covered in shadow with two eyes that held the slightest bit of blue ( _the same color as souls_ ), with the same type of cloth that was made from Hoglins hyde but put into the form of a hood. On its head rested two medium horns and near the ground, whipping around, was its tail with a spade tip.

With the young Piglin’s back turned away from the menacing presence behind him and the mature Piglin still far behind, the demon raised its sword to slice the Piglins down ( _possibly, for what it thought was an easy meal._ ). But before it could, the young brute swung its considerably smaller blade to block. A loud twang cut through the hot air, and the demon looked down in surprise. The younger mob pushed against the demon’s blade using all of his strength, the dark being stumbled back a bit before regaining its footing and pushing harder against the small golden knife. The smaller of the two was impressively keeping his footing as much as he could, he looked over his shoulder for help from his fellow brethren, he saw that they had all left, possibly at the moment they saw the glint of a sword and light-blue eyes.

The small warrior’s arms were beginning to wear out, he didn’t know how much longer he could take the strain of both the blade and the light blue eyes of his attacker. Just when he thought he was about to be slain by this beast, he felt a tug on the back of the cloth he was wearing and was thrown over the shoulder of the adult Piglin. As they were running away from the light-blued-eyed beast, it took a step towards them as if to chase after, but decided against it and walked back into the shadows.

This will be the first of many battles our young one will face.

\---

After the disaster of a hunt, the elders of the sounder decided more rigorous training for the next cycle before the group could set foot outside the Bastion. The Piglets seemed upset about the matter, especially the ones that were not apart of the hunting party. But our young protagonist wanted to get out into the crimson forest immediately to best that demon, he voiced his concerns with the elders ( _quite violently_ ) but they did not want to listen. This young Piglet was obviously too young to be roaming around out there. He had wanted to get food for the sounder of swine, he was not meant to fail. He wanted to take matters into his own hands.

\---

The next cycle and a half was spent training with the other brutes. He had grown taller than the rest of his peers, noticeably so. His height is about nearly to the height of a Piglin brute’s shoulder, while the rest of the youngsters his age were up to the elbow. He fought in mock fights with the other Piglins and learned how to carve axes and swords and knives from gold. He had challenged his peers to fights and bested every single one. The elders took notice of this and decided that it was the brutes that had taught him this skill and rewarded them, his peers noticed that it was almost like he could see the attacks coming before they had even gotten close, the Piglin brutes had taken note of his wins and congratulated him on his blood-thirsty fighting style.

How did he improve in such a short time?

Well.

Let’s rewind a bit…

\---

A few, what the over-world would call months, after the failed hunting trip, the food in the Bastion was still in full supply. Other hunting parties of more experienced Pigins had been sent out to gather food. The litter of Piglets had not been allowed outside, and though most of them had given up on trying to escape, our little warrior had not.

He knew he was destined to be out there, and he was going to get there.

He had been preparing for a while, stealing such a small amount of gold from the armory that the Piglin brutes wouldn’t notice and if they did, they wouldn’t care anyway. He used the gold from the armory to make an axe that he could use for chopping his prey, and a golden helmet ( _that would only protect himself from bumps on the head_ ). He wanted to beat something other ta\han a Piglin in battle, he needed a real challenge if he was to beat that demon one day.

When most of the elders were asleep, this little piggy snuck out into the real world on his own for the first time.

\---

On his first excursion on his own, he had found a baby Hoglin with no guardian in sight, He tightened his hand around the handle of the axe, and lunged at the small beast. The little hog still had fight in it though, and swung its ugly head with its undergrown tusks and batted him away and knocked him into a crimson stem. 

The little warrior had picked himself off the ground and swung the axe again in the direction of the Hoglin and heard a loud squeal and a thud. As the smell of blood hit the young Piglin’s nostrils, he knew he had to get it out of here and moved to a safer place. Before he did that though, he saw the way the blood dripped down onto the floor and how it pooled at his feet. While he was busy staring at the blood, the warrior heard a faint voice.

_’Technoblade’_

The swine lifted his head up and swung it around to locate the sound but it was gone as soon as it came, a slight voice in the wind. He didn’t know what it was, but he had liked the sound of it. He wished he could hear more, but no matter how long he stared at the blood he did not hear it again.

_Ah, this is where the interesting part begins._

\---

Over the next cycle, he had continued his journeys outside of the Bastion, if his peers had noticed him missing more often, they did not say anything.

Every time he shed more blood, took more lives, or the more the dead bodies piled up, and the more battles he won, it seemed a new voice would join in with the already multiplying crowd. They chanted his name ( _he had learned what ‘Technoblade’ was, it was his name_ ), they pointed out enemies before he could see them, they pointed him in the right direction, and filled the void of silence of the Bastion when the quiet got too much.

Though sometimes they would lead him astray or let an enemy land a blow, he was tough he could take it. The elders, brutes, and his peers seemed to notice his improvement, and if they ever saw him making strange noises in the corner they did not draw attention to it.

\---

Once it had been a cycle and a half since his last ( _real_ ) hunting trip, the elders had sent the same group along with more experience under their belts. The party had been a success, they had felled three whole Hoglins. While there was not a lot of celebration from Techno, the rest of his hunting party had felt the need to celebrate, even the older Piglin had given some of them a pat in the shoulder. Though Techno was almost disappointed that they had not run into the demon again.

**Almost**

The group had almost gotten lost if the voices hadn’t chimed in with their helpful tips.

_”Technolost?”_

_”No, he’s not!!”_

_”it was that way”_

_”he cant see you pointing, dumbass”_

_”E”_

_”Didn’t they take a few rights?”_

_”Guys he needs to concentrate”_

_”⚠️TECHNO YOUR BASTION IS LOCATED AT X COORDIN-”_

He started to tune them out after a while.

Since they had had a complete and successful hunt, the barters were free to leave the Bastion to find their way or stay and help protect the next generation of piglets. But Techno, one of the only Piglin brutes that had been born 7 and a half cycles ago, had to stay in the Bastion. To protect the treasure, young, and the Bastion itself.

Technoblade did not want to do that.

He wanted to explore. The small radius he had adventured out had not been enough, he wanted to see more. He didn’t want to be stuck in this place forever. He wanted to see what was beyond the crimson forest, or across the lava lake.

Sometimes the voices he would hear would take about something called a human, or a hybrid. Sometimes they would talk about a world outside of this one, one filled with more land to explore, more battles to win, more blood to spill, and more things to meet. They said that he could go there, he _wanted_ to go there. It sounded better than what was for him here. They talked about green grass, and blue skies, he didn’t even know what those were, but he wanted to see them.

When they had returned to the Bastion the Piglins brutes had taken him into a separate room and given him a new cloth to get rid of the old one. He knew if he took the cloth he wouldn’t be able to leave, but if he didn’t take it he might be hunted for sport by the very beings who raised him.

_”dont take it”_

_”this is bad…”_

_”i think he should take it”_

_”I agree”_

_”yeah”_

_”that is a terrible idea”_

_”why would you say that??”_

_”DONT DO IT TECHNO”_

_”E”_

_”technoconflicted”_

_”RUN!!”_

_”dont do it”_

_”you gotta make it to the portal man”_

Technoblade looked at the cloth held out in front of him and tightened the grip on his ax. He cut the cloth in half, probably slicing the Piglin brute as well judging by the squeal, and made a break for it.

He needed to make it to the usual hole he climbed out of, he needed to avoid as much of his species as possible, he needed to get out.

_”HE’S GOING FOR IT!”_

_”technorun!!”_

_”E”_

_”go go go go go go”_

_”he’s popping off!!!”_

_”y’all think he’s gonna make it?”_

_”he has to”_

Technoblade ran and ran past the snorting and squealing Piglins, seeing out of the corner of his eye their angry faces as he ran past. He turns a corner, almost running into the wall, before running into a strong looking Piglin brute. Since he can’t turn back, he has to go through.

He swings the axe with all his might as the Piglin in front of him dodges and rushes forward, Techno puts up his axe to block and stands his ground when the axe of the enemy threatens to push him down as he did with that demon a cycle and a half ago. This time he has enough strength to push back, and he does. He pushes the bigger brute down and swings the axe down on its chest. He hears it gurgle before it dies and he thinks that the voices get slightly louder.

_”POG”_

_”YYEAH HE DID IT!!”_

_”holy shit”_

_”we win these”_

_”technowin”_

_”POGCHAMP”_

_”was that a call back”_

_”dont read too much into it”_

_”adventure!”_

_”here we go”_

_”what.”_

Technoblade keeps running until he gets to his escape hole, and stops when he gets to the edge of the crimson forest. He looks back for a moment with a stoic look on his face before seeing the Piglin barters are chasing him and starts a mad dash into the forest. He keeps running and the squeals keep getting louder, and he runs out of breath quickly before stopping at a tree a the squeals get louder.

_”TECHNORUN”_

_”he cant!!”_

_”Oh no oh no”_

_”he’s gonna get caught”_

_”oh god oh fuck”_

_”haha”_

_”E”_

_”He needs help!”_

_”WHERE IS HE GONNA GET IT???”_

_”theyre almost here”_

_”You gotta fight em”_

_”E”_

Technoblade catches his breath as best he can and gets in a fighting stance. He glares at the direction the snorts and squeals are coming from, and waits. He doesn’t have to wait long, as soon the group of barter Piglins surrounds him. They’re all poised to attack before he feels a terrifying presence behind him.

Suddenly, the Piglins around him turn from aggressive to ( _what the voices would say_ ) scared shitless. They start to run away when he hears a low growl come from behind, some even drop their weapons and gold as they scramble over each other to get away from the presence from behind him.

When all of them are gone, Techno dares to look behind himself and sees the demon from a cycle and a half ago. The last time they were in this position, with techno looking up at an almost faceless body and the light-blue-eyes looking down at him with the intent to kill, he almost died. He doesn’t want to go through that again and grabs his axe and…

Nothing happens.

He can’t move.

He’s frozen with fear.

_”guys he’s frozen!”_

_”why”_

_”He’s probably scared of the tall ass demon in front of us?”_

_”why is it built like that?!?!?!”_

_”E”_

_”it’s not hurting him tho”_

_”it might”_

_”E”_

_”are they just having a staring match or what?”_

_”technofreeze”_

_”E”_

_”guys i think he has issues”_

_”ya think?”_

_”Is he gonna die?”_

_”maybe lol”_

Technoblade still cannot move. This is fine, he tells himself, this is fine.

The demon cocks its head to the side, and its eyes crinkle upwards. Almost like it’s grinning

_”this is not fine, technoblade”_

Sometimes, he wishes the voices weren't there.

A part of Technoblade wants to run away with the other Piglins, another part wants to fight, and another part wants to faint right this second. The demon, after watching Techno for what seemed like forever, walked away farther slowly into the forest. Techno wanted to run after it, to fight it, to kick it until it stops moving, to at least best it in battle, to win, he _wants_ to do **something**. But he can’t. He can’t move. Why can’t he move? He had been planning this for a cycle and a half! But Techno falls to his knees and takes a breath of the hot air, and tries to calm down.

_”holy shit”_

_”is it over?”_

_”wait, did the demon save techno from the piglins?”_

_”does he owe that demon a favor now?”_

_”what would it even want??”_

_”his soul”_

_”technofree!”_

_”E”_

_”Do we go to the portal now?”_

_”let him rest first”_

_”he made it!”_

_”E”_

_”E”_

_”i was convinced he was gonna die”_

_”technoblade never dies!”_

_”hell yeah!!!”_

_”E”_

_”technoblade never dies!”_

_”technoblade never dies!”_

_”if only the blood god could see him now”_

_”E”_

_”Technoblade never dies”_

_”TECHNOBLADE NEVER DIES”_

_”technoblade never dies!”_

_”Technoblade Never Dies”_

_”technoblade never dies”_

_”technoblade never dies!”_

_”Technoblade never dies!”_

_”technoblade never dies.”_

Technoblade never dies, huh? He likes the sound of that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hoped you enjoyed! there will be a second chapter i have an outline and an idea so expect to see that soon. the title of the chapter is taken from "no place like home" by marianas trench and the title of the fanfic is taken from "paint it black" by rolling stones
> 
> ANYWAY subscribe to my youtube:
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDhhI1A8pTV0__gXhQzsE-Q?view_as=subscriber
> 
> uuuh yea i think thats it ok bye


	2. it’s all so incredibly loud

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Technoblade fights three things, a carrot, a pig, and a tall ass man.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hehe im back. and i brought a new chapter with me. i wont take up too much time here but make sure you read the end notes, i got something to tell you
> 
> also the title of the chapter is taken from "it's all so incredibly loud" by glass animals

When Technoblade had finally calmed down enough from that near-death experience, he starts picking up some of the gold and weapons the Piglins had left behind, considering his axe was starting the break. He doesn’t have enough space to hold all of the tools, so he takes another axe that has more durability and a pickaxe that was barely used. He takes his almost broken axe and starts chopping down the Crimson trees and uses some of the planks to make sticks, he doesn’t know why he makes the sticks but the voices seem to like it.

_’Technochop’_

_’E’_

_‘wait why is he making sticks’_

_‘idk man’_

_‘pig man cuts down trees, 20XX colorized’_

_‘Why is that censored’_

_‘dude stop breaking the 4th wall’_

_‘you just did it again!’_

_‘our whole existence breaks the 4th wall’_

He doesn’t understand them sometimes.

\---

Techno had chopped down a few Crimson trees before he decided he had collected enough of the Crimson stems. He had made a crafting table, which was very hard considering he had never made one before. The voices in his head had to tell him how to make it, it was a very time-consuming task. He had mined the gold out of the walls of the Nether around him and made a couple more ingots ( _to go with the ones the Piglins had dropped_ ) with the crafting table. When he thought that he had enough materials to travel, he tried to pick up the crafting table before realizing that it was too big for him to carry a long distance, he decided to compromise and make a small shelter to stay in to rest.

He dug out a small hole in the wall and dragged the table in to be put in the corner. He was still calming down from the adrenalin rush that was him being chased by his previous family, so when it had finally worn off he was starting to get more tired. He didn’t sleep very often, but when he did he usually slept pretty well. Before he had the voices he let the silence of the room feed into his tiredness, but this was not before.

_‘how is he not exploding’_

_‘he doesn’t have a bed’_

_‘makes sense’_

...what was a bed?

\---

After his small nap, he had left the crafting table behind and started heading farther into the forest. As he was walking his stomach started growling, which reminded him that he hadn’t eaten in a while. He had to start hunting again or else he could starve. He had two axes strapped to his hips and his pickaxe strapped on his back, he could definitely take down a Hoglin. Though he is worried that his axe will break, eeh he’s sure it’ll be fine. 

He walks as quiet as he can as to not draw attention to himself, he listens for the sound of footsteps from Hoglins or any other mobs that might be around. He keeps walking when he trips on something coming out of the ground. He stays on the ground for a second while he listens to the voices bully him.

_‘he fell.’_

_‘technofall’_

_‘What did he even trip over?’_

_‘how was this man chosen by the blood god’_

_‘he’s just laying there...’_

_‘he should get up’_

_‘probably’_

Technoblade did not need their commentary, thank you very much.

He finally gets up after a hot minute and looks at what he tripped over. It… was gold? He didn;t know that gold could grow out of the ground like that, he always thought it could only grow on the walls or ceiling. The weird thing about it was that it had a weird texture on top of the gold, he wonders what it is.

_‘this man doesn’t know what a carrot is’_

_‘imagine not eating carrots’_

_‘carrots are kinda gross tho :/’_

_‘yeah but GOLDEN carrots are where it’s at’_

_‘they’re called golden carrots techno, it’s a vegetable. you eat it.’_

Golden carrots… a fitting name. But, you can eat it? That sounds fake, he had seen some Piglins eaten gold nuggets before usually once it hits their tongue they spit it out. Gold may look pretty to them, but the taste is not good.

_‘c’mon techno, you can trust us!’_

Well, they hadn’t led him to his death yet. He grabbed the “carrot” by the top and takes a bite off the pointy end and… it had actually tasted good. Surprisingly. The texture was smooth, but it had taken some force to bite off a piece and chew it. He decided he liked it, so he had grabbed the rest from the small group and started to walk while chewing.

_‘technoeat’_

\---

He was still walking by the time he was finished with his first-ever carrot, it had taken surprisingly long for him o get through it, possibly considering that it was basically made of gold. He was still looking for a Hoglin though, as that could last him a long time if he spaced it out accordingly. He was trying to listen for the sound of hooves on the ground but couldn’t make out anything between his own hooves and the voices.

_‘he walkin’_

_‘wonder where hes going’_

_‘out looking for that hoglin’_

_‘E’_

_‘i think we should find that demon’_

_‘No not yet thats later’_

_‘E’_

_‘shh spoilers!!’_

_‘guys i think we should be quiet’_

_‘no’_

_‘haha’_

_‘E’_

_‘technowalk’_

_‘Are we lost >’_

_‘the human gps’_

_‘he is a pig’_

He always wondered what they were talking about.

_‘TECHNO LOOK OUT!!!!’_

That message, he didn’t have to wonder about. Though he wished it could have been said a second earlier. Technoblade didn’t have enough time to dodge the oncoming attack from the Hoglin, it was almost as if it came out of nowhere. He was knocked to the ground the second time in the past few hours, and he did not like it one bit. He pushed himself off the ground and glared at the creature in front of him, he reached to his hips and grabbed his two axes. He was hoping that they wouldn’t break, but he needs food. He charged at the hog while it squealed and charged at him as well. He swung the axe down intending to hit it, but the Hoglin dodged and tackled his chest while its tusks dug into his flesh slightly. He kicked the beasts’ neck with his hooves and chopped into its skull with the nearly broken axe.

The axe had broken under the pressure but he swung the other one up against its neck and it had squealed and gurgled and kicked as it took its final breathes, As the light faded from its eyes, a new voice joined his head.

_‘blood for the blood god’_

\---

He had made a small shelter again to cook the meat and store the bones. He could eat it raw, but he always thought that meat tasted better cooked. He also used the hyde from the Hoglin to make a bag that he could put over his shoulder to hold more stuff. He put the remaining golden carrots in the bag, as well as the meat * _rapped in some extra hyde_ from the Hoglin, put some of the wood in it as well, and set on his way farther through the Crimson forest.

He realized that he didn’t really have a plan of what to do after this. He could keep walking and see what the warped forest really was since he had never really been that far from the Bastion. Or he could stay here and rest, eat some of the meat, or munch on the carrots. He decided to keep moving. He wanted to see the Warped forest for real, he had only heard stories from the other Barter Piglins that had briefly traveled there for materials. He had listened to the older Piglins talk about that if you went into the forest you could feel eyes on you and if you looked back, you wouldn’t be able to see where it was coming from.

The Crimson forest must be large considering that he had been walking this long and still hadn’t seen anything blue. The most blueish thing he could see were the blue and orange mushrooms he passed by on the floor. He wanted to listen to the voices again but decided against it because he wanted to keep an ear out for any attackers. He also decided to actually watch where he was going and to see if there were any more of those golden carrots the voices told him about.

_‘why is the forest so big’_

_‘plot reasons’_

_‘you gotta stop doing that man’_

_‘E’_

_‘why are we going this way? We gotta get to the portal’_

_‘E’_

_‘there should be one across the valley’_

_‘isnt there one across the lava lake as well?’_

_‘i dont think he’s supposed to know about that yet’_

_‘E’_

_‘E’_

_‘E’_

_‘eat carrot’_

_‘he just keeps walkin’_

_‘theres too much red’_

They talk about the weirdest things…

\---

He was munching on his third gold carrot when his hoof hit the blue ground of the Warped forest. The voices were calling it Nylium or Warped Nylium and there were more of those blue and orange mushrooms on the floor. Blue vines also grew up from the ground and reached up to the ceiling, it looked as if he could climb them but he didn’t want to take that chance.

When he walked farther into the Warped forest he could feel eyes on him just like those older Piglins had said. He didn’t really want to look around so he just kept walking.

_‘this is so creepy’_

_‘enderman’_

_‘E’_

_‘E’_

_‘E’_

_‘just keep your head low and walk’_

_‘technowalk’_

_‘why do they just stare at you’_

_‘They Are Creepy’_

He doesn’t know what an ‘Ender-man’ is and frankly, he doesn’t want to find out. This wish was made in vain though, as when he had that exact thought, he heard a ‘vwoop’ sound and saw two long legs standing in front of him.

_‘well, there it is’_

_‘oh no’_

_‘hahah’_

_‘if he looks up he’s gonna get smacked’_

_‘E’_

_‘techno dont look up’_

_‘i think he should look’_

_‘that would be very funny’_

_‘^^’_

_‘thats a bad idea’_

_‘why would you say that’_

_‘technolook’_

_‘E’_

_‘guys dont say that’_

_‘E’_

_‘E’_

_‘E’_

_‘E’_

_‘E’_

Well, they weren’t helping.

Technoblade was battling himself on whether or not he should look up. With the voices fighting each other and his curiosity, he decided to look up. When he looked up he saw long spindly legs with a long torso and arms, attached to the neck of the dark figure was a head with purple eyes and sharp fangs. He looked right into the eyes of the beast and was lost in the glow of it all. That was a mistake because when he did the ‘enderman’, as the voices called it, started screeching loudly. What sounded like static in the back of his mind started growing louder and louder, he jumped back in surprise. The Enderman ran after him and swiped at him with its sharp claws, he grabbed his remaining axe and got in a fighting stance.

_‘omg he actually did it’_

_‘why did he do that??!?!’_

_‘those things are scary’_

_‘technofight’_

_‘fight! fight! fight! fight!’_

_‘E’_

_‘he better win’_

_‘I didn’t expect him to actually do that’_

_‘i like its eyes :)’_

_‘techno! dont let it touch you!!’_

The Enderman was hard to hit, it was fast and almost unpredictable, it also kept disappearing and reappearing at will. He kept dodging but sometimes it wasn’t enough, when he landed a hit on it it just hit him back. Technoblade swung at the Enderman again, this time landing a critical blow on it, and it still wouldn’t go down. This time, instead of swiping, the mob took its hands and grabbed Techno’s neck and squeezed, cutting off his air supplies.

_‘oh’_

_‘he cant die’_

_‘well, pack it up, everyone. this one’s gone’_

_‘E’_

_‘technobreathe’_

_‘he’s not gonna die’_

_‘TAKE THE AXE AND SWING IT!!’_

_‘chop off the arms’_

_‘he will not die’_

Technoblade does not want to die. In fact, he will not. So he takes the voice’s advice and swings the golden axe and chops off the Enderman’s arms. It screeches and falls to the ground, writhing around until it stops and drops a spherical greenish item. But Techno isn’t paying attention to that, he paying attention to the fact that he couldn’t breathe and that he almost died.

_‘we win these’_

_‘oh shit’_

_‘this guy’s good’_

_‘E’_

_‘yesss! good job techno!!’_

_‘i take back what i said, he wont die’_

_‘blood for the blood god!’_

_‘technowin!!!’_

_‘BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD’_

_‘hell yeah blood’_

_‘technoblade never dies!’_

_‘that was terrifying’_

_‘noob’_

_‘wow he really did win’_

Technoblade thinks that he’s done enough exploring for a while and digs out a small hole in the wall of the Nether and dropped his bag on the floor and leaned against the wall before sliding down. Techno takes a breath and exhales, calming down from that fight with the Enderman, and takes a look in his bad to make sure it isn’t ripped or if anything fell out. He counts the carrots ( _there’s only 3 left, he should get some more. he likes them better than the Hoglin meat._ ), and takes the cooked Hoglin meat out took eat. If he eats all of it, he could have an excuse to get more carrots, so he does just that and starts devouring it.

_‘wait did it drop a pearl?’_

...what’s a pearl.

_‘techno!!! you missed an ender pearl’_

_‘oh yea he probably doesnt know what it is’_

_‘go get the pearl’_

_‘E’_

_‘yea its useful’_

_‘you can be one with an enderman’_

He doesn’t want that. But he’s curious as to what this “pearl” does. So Technoblade gets up from his comfortable spot on the floor and walks out of the hole toward where he fought the Enderman and finds a round sphere on the ground instead of the body.

_‘that’s an ender pearl’_

Aah, so that’s what it looked like. Technoblade picked up the pearl and looked it over, it was a strange thing, he had never seen anything like it. It was a nice color and felt cold ( _which was rare for the Nether_ ) to the touch. He doesn’t know how it could be useful, he’ll have to test it out.

_‘techno you gotta throw it at something’_

Why did they want him to throw it? He doesn’t really want to get rid of it, and didn’t they want him to grab it anyway?

_‘Techno throw it!’_

_‘E’_

_‘he should throw it’_

_‘throw it throw it’_

_‘techno you can trustus :)’_

_‘do it’_

_‘technoblade is technolame if he doesn’t throw it’_

Well, he doesn’t want to be lame, so he winds up his arm behind his head and throws the pearl on top of a Warped tree. The second it touches the ground it smashes apart and Technoblade disappears and reappears on top of the tree. The feeling when it happened was the most strange part, he had felt like something inside of him was moving and the feeling of a small prick of pain when he had touched the ground. He guesses the voices were right, this could be useful. He thinks he should get more.

_‘yeah technoteleport’_

_‘he teleported on the tree’_

_‘E’_

_‘that was pretty cool’_

_‘shouldn’t he know how to use them’_

_‘E’_

_‘later’_

_‘how is he gonna get down now’_

Oh. Yeah. He was kinda stuck now. He was standing on top of a pretty tall Warped tree, and he didn’t want to drop down and risk getting hurt. He looked to his right and saw one of the taller vines that had grown from the floor. Oh no.

_‘technoclimb’_

_‘hes gotta climb’_

_‘you gotta climb down my man’_

_‘he should just jump’_

_‘no he’ll get hurt’_

_‘coward’_

_‘techno climb down’_

“No. No, I’m not doing that.” Technoblde didn’t speak often to the voices, but when he did, he usually meant business.

_‘he spoke!!’_

_‘E’_

_‘technospeak’_

_‘he means business guys’_

_‘how is he gonna get down tho’_

_‘E’_

_‘fall’_

_‘now he has to climb down’_

_‘climb’_

_‘climb’_

_‘climb’_

_‘climb’_

_‘climb’_

_‘climb’_

_‘climb’_

“...fine.”

Technoblade walks over to the edge of the tree and grabs onto the vine, it was surprisingly sturdy. He guessed it had to be if it was growing upward. He put both hands around it and lifted himself off the tree and started to slide down it. It was hard to hold on to it when climbing down, so when he grabbed on to it too tightly and stoped his descent altogether, he knew this was a bad idea. He had to loosen his grip and slide down it more slowly than before but eventually, he made it to the ground and calmed down for a second before walking back to his little cave.

_‘do you think the endermen are still watching?’_

Technoblade hadn’t even realized that he could still feel the eyes on him, it made him uncomfortable but he decided to put it out of his mind and rest

He sat down on the ground and started eating the rest of the Hoglin meat. He thought that if he took some time to rest right now, he could go looking for more of the golden carrots later. Techno finished off the meat and laid on the floor. It took a while to get comfortable, with the voices not quieting down and the weird texture of the Netherrack, but eventually, he drifted off to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> techno: the fuck, the fuck, the fuck is in the air?? the fuck??? there's loot everywhere 
> 
> hope you enjoyed! im having fun writing this.
> 
> anyway so what im here to tell you is that im going to try and update this every two days. so expect to see another chapter then. as im writing this im currently halfway through the 3rd chapter
> 
> anyway next chapter, techno gets an upgrade and we get to see things from another perspective briefly. next chapter will be kinda long and techno will leave the nether so, hopefully you can look forward to that.
> 
> also, in google docs, this chapter is 14 pages long. just needed to share that


	3. ooh, we gotta turn up the crazy!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Technoblade leaves the Nether, loots a dead body, considers drop kicking a child multiple times, almost burns his foot off, eats what is basically drugs, and escapes death more than once. Not necessarily in that order...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haha, this is my longest one yet. i probably should have broken it up into multiple chapters but i didn’t want to drag out techno’s adventure through the nether. also, the chapter title is from the song “victorious” by panic! at the disco
> 
> ANYWAY, as you have probably seen, i bumped up the rating for this story for a reason why you might want to read this next part
> 
> possible trigger warnings for this chapter:
> 
> \- techno finds a decaying corpse of a piglin  
> \- techno watches someone die (no blood tho)  
> \- he gets hit over the head with a rock  
> \- techno bites off more than he can chew and almost gets killed
> 
> i dont know if anyone is sensitive to that kinda stuff or not so i wanted to put this here just in case. anyway, i hope you enjoy the chapter!!

Ever since he had left the Bastion Technoblade had been sleeping more often. It could be that he felt safer away from the Piglins, or that he just felt more at home exploring and not locked into a lifestyle he doesn’t want to live.

When Technoblade he had made another crafting table and set it down in the corner, he wanted to make another golden axe. He had beaten the Hoglin faster with two axes, when he gets in more battles with Endermen to get their pearls he’ll want it to be easier. He was about to craft another axe, but the voices told him to stop.

_‘no techno!!!’_

_‘make a sword’_

_‘E’_

_‘axes are cool but swords are made for slicing’_

_‘you can hit more ppl with it’_

_‘technosword’_

_‘E’_

He knew what a sword was, he would see some of the Zombie Piglins carry them before the Brutes had killed them. He didn’t know how to make one though, and he didn’t want it to take up time like learning how to make a crafting table did. But, against his better judgment, he asked the voices how to make a sword.

\---

The time he spent in the Warped forest was terrible.

After he had crafted a golden sword, he had used his axe to gather some Warped stem and kept it in his bag. He had also decided to go mining for some gold nuggets to keep. Techno also found a white ore, one that the voices called Nether Quartz. They wanted him to take it with him but he didn’t want to take up too much space in his bag.

Techno still felt the eyes on him. Sometimes he’d heard things and turn around and look but then would only find purple particles before they disappeared. He couldn’t focus on mining because of the feeling of eyes on him, he would be mining some gold and the feeling would get so overwhelming that he would turn around and see a cloud of purple right behind himself. It made him so paranoid that he wanted to leave immediately, but he wanted to continue getting gold to possibly make armor.

The voices kept telling him to keep pushing forward and to see whats passed the Warped forest. But he didn’t want to stay there any longer and he had to get more of those golden carrots. When Techno is walking back to the little hole in the wall he’s made, he thinks he sees green and red particles in the corner of his eye. He tells himself that it’s nothing.

When he gets to his little hidey-hole, he drops the bag on the ground and grabs the gold ingots and nuggets from it. Techno walks over to the crafting table and starts turning the nuggets into ingots and the ingots into armor. When he’s got a chest plate and a helmet he feels ready to kick some tall man ass.

\---

Technoblade has two pieces of armor, a sword in his hand, a pickaxe across his back, and an axe attached to his hip when he kills five Endermen.

The first one he takes by surprise, he sneaks up behind and stabs it through the chest. Sadly, though, it did not drop an ender pearl.

The second he had accidentally looked in the eyes when he was looking for the pearl that he had hoped it would have dropped. This one dropped an ender pearl, but it has also was a more tough one to kill.

The third he had dropped in on from the top of a hill and had died to the stab in the head. The visual of a pig dropping down from nowhere onto a very tall dark figure was apparently interesting enough to warrant the other Endermen around him to turn their heads and narrow their eyes at him. He had looked down quickly and grabbed the pearl and walked away.

The fourth one was easy. He had walked up to it while it was holding a piece of Netherrack and used the sword to slice it in half. This one had also dropped a pearl.

The fifth one was way harder to fight than the last one. He had been trying to sneak up on it, but it had probably heard him and turned around and stared at him in the eyes. It had taken one look and the beast rushed at him with its long claws. It tried to scratch Techno’s upper body but couldn’t get past the armor much so it had taken to slicing his legs and then teleporting away. He had taken the sword and landed a few hits to the point where the purpled-eyed beast was bleeding from some small cuts but it wasn’t enough to kill it. 

The Enderman had teleported away for a long moment, a long enough moment for Techno to think it just ran away and gave up so he let his guard down. Only for the Enderman to come back holding a piece of Warped Nylium and smash it over his head, breaking his golden helmet.

_‘what about endermen is so difficult for you’_

_‘they’re kinda hard to beat tho’_

_‘technofight’_

_‘E’_

_‘blood for the blood god!’_

_‘get em techno’_

Technoblade closes his eyes and swings his sword behind him and hears the death screech of an Enderman and gains another pearl.

Technoblade had killed five Endermen, gained four ender pearls, broke his golden helmet, almost broke his golden sword, and came out with a bunch of scratches and bruises.

He’d say that hunt was successful.

\---

Technoblade had left the Warped biome after what seemed like forever and went back to the Crimson forest. The moment he had set foot ( _or hoof_ ) on the Crimson Nylium he didn’t feel like a thousand eyes were watching him and waiting for him to let his guard down and kill him. 

He had forgotten where he put his little cave he dug out so instead of walking in the direction of the Bastion, Techno decided to take a right and climb up a hill that was in his way, when he reached the top he looked out at the Crimson forest and how it reached so far that he could barely see the Nether waste that was on the other side of it. He looked down and saw some Piglins roaming around with crossbows ( _‘he remembers being told by other Brutes that he wasn’t allowed to use them, those weapons were made for the Barter Piglins and not for something as high as a Brute Piglin’_ ). He saw some young Piglets following the adults and trying to hold the weight of the crossbow and failing. When they fell down the older of the two wouldn’t help them up but instead wait for them to pick themselves up and continue walking.

He turns his head away from that and decides to use his remaining gold to Barter with them to get some materials.

\---

After he barters for some materials, he looks through what he got and sees that he got 3 more ender pearls, some fire resistance potions, and 19 more golden carrots. Added to his two, he now has 21 golden carrots, which should sustain him for a while. Technoblade wondered why the Piglins at the Bastion had given him any gold carrots, it seemed like an easy food source to get, maybe they just liked the thrill of the hunt and the spill of the blood. He also got a singular Warped fungus, which he learned from the voices that it can ward off Hoglins.

After he had walked a little bit away from the barter Piglins to mine some gold, he knew that even if you were wearing gold, that if a Piglin saw you mining it they would get angry and attack you. So he makes an effort to keep himself hidden when mining the gold.

After Techno mines enough gold, he makes a new helmet and has enough for leggings and boots, he could make both and just mine some more but he doesn’t really want to. The voices seem to disagree.

_‘make the armor, you need it’_

_‘do it do it’_

_‘technoarmor’_

_‘you can mine some more later just make the armor’_

_‘E’_

_‘mine the gold’_

He decides to make the armor and mine more gold. When finds gold and mines it, he doesn’t hear any distant snorting from Piglins or their footsteps. He thinks this is strange but blames it on the lack of gold in the area. When he’s walking back to his crafting table, he thinks he’s being watched.

\---

_He watched from behind a tree as the Piglin mined the gold nuggets to make into gold ingots to barter with the Piglins. He had been watching this one for a while now, he really didn’t know why he was so interested in this one. But this one was different from the others, he had never seen a Piglin run from other Piglins before ( _unless you count zombie piglins, but they were beyond dead_ ). They had mostly run away from himself. Being the very manifestation of soul fire had made Piglins terrified of him, usually, this was a good thing, as it kept them away from him and his son when he was brought along for hunting trips ( _well, “hunting” trips. he’d never want to intentionally put his son in danger_ )._

_He had an idea why this Piglin was different from his brethren, the mob could have a soul. Which was very rare, a mob with a soul that wasn’t a human happened, yes, but most mobs get killed by humans or their mob parents after birth. He remembered he read a book about it in his hometown’s library, he also vaguely remembered it was run by a sweet old man who had passed away only a year before he ended up here. He thinks it ended up being run by his grandson before it closed down when the grandson went missing._

_He had gotten lost in his thoughts and was pulled out of it when he realized he had lost sight of him. Oh well, it was about time he got going anyway, he didn’t want to permanently scare away **all** the Piglins. He thought that he should grab some more golden carrots or Hoglin meat before he leaves for the Valley._

\---

Technoblade had finally found some more Piglins to barter with. He had gotten a gray block of something that left grey dust on his hands, some kind of dark purple rock with bright wet purple streaks all over it, and 4 more ender pearls. He has eleven now. He didn’t really have room in his bag for the gray material _‘his chat told him it was kinda useless, he didn’t like it very much either’_ , so he just left it on the ground.

The feeling of being watched had disappeared a little bit before he found more Piglins, he didn’t know if it was an Enderman that had followed him or something else. Eeh, he’s sure it’s nothing. He looks at his golden pickaxe to check its durability and sees that it is almost broken, so he just decides to mine as much gold as possible and watched as it broke when mining his last piece of gold. So he makes another one with his crafting table and digs out _another_ hole in the wall and put the crafting table in the corner. He puts the ( _what the voices called “crying obsidian, he doesn’t know what obsidian is or why it’s crying but it’s a cool name”_ ) wet purple block in the corner which lit up the little hole he is planning on staying in. He also planted the Warped fungus on the floor. The voices wonder why he is decorating the small room before he tells them.

_‘why is he decorating it’_

_‘E’_

_‘wait hes not getting the crying obsidian back’_

_‘oof’_

_‘E’_

_‘E’_

_‘isn’t it the end of the cycle soon?’_

_‘technos birthday!!!!’_

_‘hes gonna b like 8 right?’_

_‘it’s gonna get rlly hot too’_

_‘technobirth’_

_‘ok thats weird’_

_‘E’_

Technoblade should do something to get their attention.

“Hey.”

_‘technospeak’_

_‘he talking’_

_‘E’_

_‘what does he want’_

_‘technoblade’_

That got their attention

“I am making a shelter for the hottest part of the cycle. I know what I am doing, it will be fine.” His voice was on the verge of being too low but too high at the same time, and his English was slightly wobbly. He didn’t speak too often, as it felt weird to use his vocal cords in that way. But the voices seemed to like it.

_‘he’s growing up’_

_‘technoage’_

_‘he’ll be eight soon’_

_‘he’s gotta get to that portal soon’_

_‘we can wait until the end of the cycle’_

_‘but he’s gotta meet_ a certain someone’

_‘dude he can hear you’_

He doesn’t really know what this “portal” is but the voices seemed to really want him to go to it. He kinda wants to ask them but he needs to get more food. He walks out of his cave and grabs some more golden carrots. While he grabs carrots, he notices a Hoglin coming at him and digs his sword into its head when it gets close enough. He realizes that he doesn’t really know what to do with the meat or hyde so he drags it back to his little cave and cuts up some of the meat to use for food, but he doesn’t cook it.

\---

The small little room is coming together. He replaced the floor with Crimson planks and left a little ground for the Warped fungus to stay alive. The voices also told him how to make a door, so he uses the Crimson wood to make a door and covers the entrance with it. He still had full golden armor but his sword was getting close to breaking but since the hottest point of the cycle was approaching the Hoglins would get harder to find. Which was fine, since he didn’t really want to eat the meat anyway. He had cooked and eaten some of the meat but not all of it.

When the end of the cycle arrived, it had gotten too hot to wear his armor. When the heat rose and he started sweating more and more, he could only wear the armor for a little bit at a time. He had tossed it in the corner of the room and laid down on the hyde from the Hoglin as what the voices called ‘a bed’.

When the end of the cycle started he had 36 olden carrots. By the time it had ended, he had, at most, ten of them left.

When the hottest part of the cycle had ended, he was 8 cycles old. The temperature had started to drop a bit when he realized this, apparently, so did the voices.

_‘Our boy has grown’_

_‘E’_

_‘can’t believe it’s been this long’_

_‘its like only a few days ago he was a small piglet’_

_‘technically it was’_

_‘stop doing that’_

_‘E’_

_‘ok can we PLEASE go to the portal now’_

_‘no’_

_‘E’_

_‘E’_

_‘but guys he needs to’_

_‘we can wait a little longer it’ll be fine’_

_‘E’_

They mentioned that portal thing again. He should ask them what it is, just to get them off his back about it.

Technoblade asks them as he walks to the room to grab the Warped fungus.

“Um. Voices? Hey, so what is a portal, and how do uuh I get to it?”

_‘good question’_

_‘it’s past the soul sand valley’_

_‘technoportal’_

_‘you gotta walk across and then stand in a purple swirly thing’_

_‘finally’_

_‘E’_

_‘why didn’t you ask sooner?’_

_‘yeess we can get out of here’_

_‘OVER-WORLD JOURNEY!!!’_

_‘its past the crimson and warped forest, then you walk thru the valley’_

That was… more helpful than he thought it’d be.

“So, past the forests and through some kind of valley? That seems easy enough.”

_‘oh yeah definitely easy’_

_‘super easy’_

_‘c’mon techno let’s go!!’_

_‘adventure time’_

When he walked out the door he expected to see some of the Crimson trees and vines overgrown, maybe a few more mushrooms on the ground than he had last seen. What he didn’t expect to see, however, was the rotting corpse of a Piglin on what was essentially his front doorstep. The body looked like it had been there for a while, it was majorly injured too. Its right arm had almost been completely detached from its torso and it had scratch and bite marks all over it, in its left arm was a crossbow and a few arrows that laid next to it. Techno couldn’t stop staring at it, he was used to seeing corpses of what he killed and wasn’t afraid of cutting up a Hoglin for food, but he had never really seen a decaying body before.

_‘woah’_

_‘never thought we’d wake up to a dead body but here we are’_

_‘ew’_

_‘E’_

_‘is techno alright?’_

_‘who killed it?’_

_‘more like what’_

_‘looks like it got mauled by a bear’_

_‘we dont got bears down here’_

When he was still living in the Bastion, Piglins ( _or mobs_ ) that died inside or outside of it were tossed into the lava lake that the structure looked out over. He thinks he could be losing precious time, so he put the thought of seeing a real decaying dead body in the back of his mind, and take the crossbow and arrows. When he bent down to pick the weapon up he realized the corpse smelled like burnt souls, so he quickly grabs it and backs away. He doesn’t have a lot of room to carry another weapon so he had to leave one behind, he chooses the pickaxe to leave behind. While it is useful, it is not the most ideal weapon.

_‘nooo!!!!’_

_‘aw man’_

_‘E’_

_‘not the pickaxe’_

_‘goodbye pickaxe, you will be missed’_

_‘E’_

_‘oh no’_

_‘guys we can make another one’_

_‘he has like 3 pieces of gold left he can make another one if he needs to’_

_‘he doesn’t need it right now’_

_‘it’s useful tho’_

_‘yea but he’s just walking’_

_‘technowalk’_

_‘just let him loot the damn body already’_

_‘never thought i’d hear that sentence’_

The crossbow is slightly damaged, probably from the fight it had, and looks like it could handle some more shots if used correctly. Technoblade lines up the crossbow with a Crimson tree and takes the shot, when he pulls the trigger he didn’t expect to be pushed backward, so he makes a mental note to fix his stance the next time he uses it. He clips it to his back and keeps walking.

\---

Technoblade didn’t expect to meet anyone while walking through the Crimson forest, but he should come to expect surprises with his luck.

He meets the kid when he is walking towards the Warped forest and the portal thingy the voices keep talking about. The constant chatter of them keeps himself occupied enough to not space out but still passes the time. He is barely listening to them when he hears an interesting voice jump out at him.

_‘technoblade, look to your left’_

It had been a weird request, yes, but it had piqued his curiosity. He turned his head to the right and heard the sounds of fighting, really bad fighting. He could hear the squeals of a Hoglin and the sounds of someone struggling. He should probably check it out, but he didn’t want to interfere with someone’s hunt and he didn’t want to anger them if they were a Piglin.

Technoblade was about to start walking again when he heard the clang of gold hitting the ground and the groan of something that definitely was not a Piglin. So he walks over and hides behind one of the trees to see what is happening. When he looks past the tree he sees a small figure on the ground that looks like a small Piglin crossed with something dipped in darkness and a Hoglin running towards it with the intention to kill. In the back of his mind, he gets the feeling to drop kick that child, whether it is in self-defense or not is up for debate. He almost just wants to see what happens if he doesn’t intervene but he decides against it and loads his crossbow and takes the shot.

The shot lands of course. The Hoglin drops to the floor and the small figure looks up at Technoblade like he is the one attacking them. He realizes that the figure looks a lot like that demon who had saved him when he ran away from the Bastion, except the eyes didn’t have the same blue hue. Instead, they were more of an orange color, and the bottom half of their face wasn’t the same dark fur that covered demons, it was more of a tan color. It looked like it was a hybrid of some sort, is this what the voices talked about sometimes? The demon halfling had stubby little horns and a tail with a more triangle tip instead of the normal spade.

The half-demon was very small, almost too small. He remembered that he still had that piece of meat he could give, but he thought that he should keep it for himself. So he stops looking at the small demon and turns to the dead body next to him and starts cutting up some of the meat to give to the small creature. He realized that the little demon didn’t have any gold on them besides a gold pickaxe. So when he dropped the meat on the ground in front of them, he also dropped his gold boots.

\---

_‘you should have yeeted him’_

_‘isn’t it yoted’_

_‘whatever’_

_‘that was nice :)’_

_‘too nice. yeet it’_

_‘no!!! dont do that’_

_‘yeet the child’_

Technoblade ignores them.

\---

After the exchange with the demon boy, Technoblade worked on getting some more gold for gold boots. He had used his remaining gold to make another golden pickaxe and used the rest of his wood to make sticks, so he was running low on materials. He didn’t really need them and if he needed more he could always get more by chopping down trees. He hid the crafting table and pickaxe away from prying eyes when he is done using them, the pickaxe is at about half durability and he probably won’t need it again.

He started walking towards the Warped forest again and the moment he steps foot on the blue ground he’s met with the feeling of a thousand eyes watching his every move. He really wants to just get through this place and move onto the next biome but he doesn’t know how big the forest spans so he makes sure to watch where he’s going. He keeps his gaze low to the ground as to not anger any Endermen and keeps walking in a straight line.

Even though he was supposed to be watching where he was going, he looked up for a moment to check where he was and to see if he was actually making progress instead of just walking in circles. He swears he took his eyes off of the ground for a second and didn’t see any lava that was cascading down from the ceiling. Before he looks back down, however, Techno feels a very hot burning sensation on his right leg which was caused by him stepping in lava that was definitely not there before. He gave out a loud squeal, which definitely caught the attention of the Endermen in a 50-mile radius, and immediately pulled his foot out, it thankfully wasn’t fully burnt off because of his Piglin resistance to lava, but it still hurt a lot.

_‘technoburn’_

_‘oooh thats gotta hurt’_

_‘haha noob’_

_‘you alright there?’_

_‘oof’_

_‘should’ve watched where you were goin’_

_‘damn’_

_‘get to the portal already’_

“ _Not…helping.._ ” Technoblade gritted out

Techno was holding onto it while balancing on one leg when he dropped the burnt hoof onto the ground and immediately felt a jolt of pain go through his whole body. He didn’t know how to fix it so he decided to just leave it for now. It was hard finding a way to walk on it without it hurting but he eventually found a way and continued walking ( _more like limping_ ) towards, what the voices called, the Soul sand Valley.

\---

Technoblade could see the trees starting to thin around him. The voices were starting to get more excited with each step he took closer to the valley. While he was walking he had almost stumbled into an Enderman after he had burned his leg. Thankfully the noise it had made stopped him from bumping into it, he had begun to look up to see what he ran into but quickly lowered his gaze when he realized what he was looking at.

He knows the voices loved it, but he couldn’t bring himself to fight something right now. His right leg was injured from the ankle down and he didn’t know if it could support his weight if he had to move rapidly. He didn’t really want to test that theory.

\---

He had to test that theory.

The soul sand valley seemed okay at first, _at first_. It had quickly turned into a game of “How many arrows and demon claws can Technoblade dodge with an injured foot”. When Techno had stepped foot onto the soul sand he started walking like it was normal, he had to admit though, it was weird not to see any tress that he could hide behind but he didn’t think too much of it. He thought that the giant ribcage was a little weird but just thought something had died.

_‘why’_

_‘thats big’_

_‘E’_

_‘E’_

_‘ender dragon skeleton’_

_‘thats just a theory’_

_‘a what theory...?’_

_‘dont start’_

_‘what a big boy this was. A real chonker’_

_‘what the hell’_

As he was staring at the giant bones, he didn’t expect anything to attack him, so he let his guard down. Which was probably a mistake, considering he was pulled out of his thoughts by a low growl behind him. He doesn’t really want to turn around because he already knows what he will find. His nostrils filled with the scent of burning souls and dead memories. He turned around slowly and met the eyes of a demon, a particularly tall one, it had to have been at least 2 heads taller than himself. It was not the same demon that he had met half a cycle ago, and most certainly wasn’t the half-demon he had met in the Crimson forest.

Technoblade was planning on just standing there, but, fortunately, a skeleton happened to shoot an arrow their way and had hit the demon in the shoulder. This was enough to distract it from Techno for a moment, a moment which he used to pull himself out of his stupor and start running towards the Warped forest.

No matter how much it hurt, Techno kept running. Even when he knew the demon was gaining on him, even when he saw the arrows of skeletons flew past his vision, and when he touched the ground of the Warped forest and the eyes followed him he kept running. He was still going by the time he had reached the Crimson forest. Only slowing down when he felt like they weren’t chasing him anymore.

_‘we were so close’_

_‘go back’_

_‘we gotta go back’_

_‘E’_

_‘E’_

_‘you were so close to freedom!!!’_

_‘c’mon’_

_‘technorun’_

He was leaning up against a tree and trying to keep his weight off his aching ankle when, apparently, he was having just a bit too much good luck. So when he had heard the pull of a crossbow string behind him, he knew he was not having a good day.

\---

The Piglins he had run into had taken his bag and most of his armor, all that he had left was his sword and his leggings. He was hiding behind a piece of Netherrack went he heard a particularly loud yelp that had him looking over at the Piglin camp and saw that little half-demon he had given food to running away from an angry group of Piglins. When the younger one had run past the Netherrack he was hiding behind, he grabbed the back of their shirt and pulled them into the hiding spot. Thankfully, the Piglins were too dumb to notice their prey had gone missing so they kept running in that direction until they had come out of their anger and walked back.

When the group of swine had sat down to rummage through his belongings, he let go of the small child and placed him on the ground. The half-demon had pulled out his knife and in retaliation, the Piglin had grabbed his sword from his back and pointed it at the small beast. The boy had lowered his weapon in defeat. He had saved this child two times already and had not received anything of gratitude, he wondered if he should drop-kick the child right now but decided against it.

His companion looked over at the camp and back at Techno with a determined look in his eyes. It seemed like he wanted to get his stuff back, so he had agreed and they started planning.

\---

Technoblade had fought, he had fought and he had won, With only a sword and gold leggings, Technoblade had won a fight, with some help of course. But that doesn’t matter right now, because now, he was watching over this random kid in a cave that he had dugout. 

The kid’s name was Sapnap, he’s been told. He told ~~the kid~~ Sapnap his name as well, in fact, Sapnap was the only person he had talked to besides the voices. He figured he should leave before he wakes up, so as he puts some cooked meat on the floor wrapped in hyde, he puts his armor on, slings his bag over his shoulder, and looks behind at the sleeping figure on the floor, and walks out the door.

\---

The short time he spent in the Crimson forest again he grabbed more golden carrots, as he was walking, however, he saw a shine of gold hanging from the Crimson tree. He walked over to it and saw that it was a golden sphere of some sort. He picked it from the tree and rolled it around in his hands.

_‘yooo is that a golden apple’_

_‘good shit right there’_

_‘E’_

_‘E’_

_‘could have used that earlier’_

_‘take it with you techno!’_

_‘he should eat it’_

_‘no not yet!!’_

_‘techno, it’s a golden apple. like a golden carrot but with magic properties.’_

Well, that sounded interesting.

_‘dont eat it yet techno’_

_‘eat it eat it’_

_‘NOO!!!’_

Technoblade sniffed the golden fruit, it smelled sweet but with a hit of metal. He looked at it for a moment before taking a large bite out of it. The moment it had hit his tongue, it had disintegrated into nothing. He kept taking bites out of it before he finished the whole thing, he started to walk away from the tree and continued on his journey.

_‘nooo!!!’_

_‘aw man’_

_‘creeper’_

_‘shouldn’t something be happening now?’_

_‘give it a minute’_

_‘E’_

_‘E’_

_‘E’_

_‘well, there goes that’_

Technoblade thinks they’re over-reacting. He doesn’t feel anything, and the apple ( _or whatever it was called_ ) didn’t taste like anything really, just the distant taste of sweetness. He didn’t understand what they were talking about until about a minute after he had eaten it. Techno’s brain began to speed up, his thoughts going a mile a minute, he felt like he could take on an army of Hoglins and Endermen. It was almost too much to handle at one point before it had settled down and he could walk in a straight line.

_‘damn, you alright there?’_

_‘nerd’_

_‘E’_

_‘E’_

_‘wow’_

_‘we just gonna brush over that?’_

_‘probably’_

_‘E’_

This time, when Technoblade walks towards the Valley, his right leg doesn’t feel like it’s on fire all the time anymore.

\---

When Techno reaches the Valley for the second time, his leg is healed and he feels like he had a good rest. So when he runs ( _walks because of how hard it is to even run through the soil and sand_ ) across the Valley, he makes sure not to make any stops and just keeps walking past the skeletons trying to shoot and avoids the walking souls of the dark biome.

He does accidentally walk into a demon about a few inches taller than himself and _does not_ freeze this time and starts running to where the voices tell him to go. As the demon chases after him, he tries to follow the voice’s directions.

_‘take a left’_

_‘no, a right!!’_

_‘JUST GO STRAIGHT!!!’_

He keeps running in a straight line, even though the sand slows him down.

_‘the nether waste should be coming up’_

_‘the portals there right?’_

_‘it should be’_

_‘E’_

_‘E’_

_‘E’_

_‘once he gets far enough onto the netherrack the demon wont chase him’_

_‘why is it chasing him?’_

_‘probably wants his soul’_

_‘E’_

Technoblade can see the Netherrack, he needs to make it before the demon does. He can hear it growl and hiss as it too is slowed down by the soul sand, but that won’t deter it from getting to him. As the Netherrack is only a few steps away, the demon grabs the back of his cloth and pulls him back. Techno can basically feel its breath on his neck before he reaches for his sword and slices at its neck.

Blueish-white smoke is released from the wound as the dark beast tries to cover its neck with its clawed fingers, making the wound bigger. He watches as the creature slumps to its final death and becomes one with the ground.

Technoblade gets up from the ground and starts to walk across the Netherrack listening to the voices congratulate him on his win.

_‘we win these’_

_‘later nerd’_

_‘technowin’_

_‘E’_

_‘technoblade never dies’_

_‘BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!!!’_

_‘there wasn’t any blood tho’_

Technoblade walks until he heard a weird sound and a purple light coming from the distance, he starts running towards it when he realizes what it is. He runs past the Zombie Piglins, probably bumping into a few as he tries to get to the portal.

_‘GO GO GO GO GO GO’_

_‘GO TECHNO GO’_

_‘RUN!!!’_

_‘finally!!!!!!’_

_‘E’_

_‘E’_

_‘we gotta go’_

_‘gotta go fast’_

_‘go!!!’_

_‘E’_

When Technoblade reaches the portal, he can’t help but feel a little intimidated. It’s a weird structure, the frame is made out of a material that looked a lot like the crying obsidian he had gotten from bartering with Piglins, and the part in the middle reminds him of Endermen eyes.

_‘stand in it’_

_‘walk in’_

_‘goooo’_

_‘lets go lets go’_

_‘over-word, here we come!’_

Technoblade walks into the portal with his eyes closed, and the next time he opens them, he sees a bright light shining from above.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **me, referencing characters vaguely in one sentence: _can’t stop, wont stop_**
> 
> **technoblade holding sapnap: _the fuck is this shit??? am i suppossed to kick it????_**
> 
> **sapnap, while meeting techno for the first time: _PWEASE SIR, I AM BUT A LITTLE CWEATUWE DO NOT HUWT ME_**
> 
> **technoblade, eating a golden apple: _yo this edible ain’t shi-_**
> 
> **the demon chasing after technoblade: _why are you running? WHY ARE YOU RUNNING???_**
> 
> **technoblade leaving the nether: _later sluts_**
> 
> HOLY SHIT!! that was a long one boys, this mf is the longest thing i’ve EVER written. It’s sitting at about 22 pages long and has 6,596 words.
> 
> anyway, this is the end of the nether arc! 
> 
> next chapter techno wakes up in another dimension, meets a (sorta) rude woman, gains the title “blood-god” for real this time, and we see from the eyes of a certain winged man for a brief moment.
> 
> i dont know if i’ve mentioned this before, but this fanfic is the first multi-chapter story thing i’ve done. so seeing the kudos and comments saying that they like this means a lot to me, so i hope you have a nice day :)


	4. fifty words for murder, and im every one of them

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A pig fights, a diamond schemes, and a bird watches.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope you enjoy :) i dont want to take up your time here so i’ll talk more in the end notes but the title is from “victorious” by p!atd

When Technoblade went through the portal, he didn’t expect to be blinded by something called the sun.

Techno covers his eyes immediately and falls to his knees.

_‘should we have warned him’_

_‘nah’_

_‘E’_

_‘its a learning thing’_

_‘E’_

_‘E’_

_‘he doesnt know what a sun is tho’_

After a few seconds of just sitting there, Technoblade opens his eyes and gets off his knees, and looks around the Overworld for the first time. He sees trees around him, but not the glaring red or calm blue of the Crimson and Warped forests, it had a dark texture with dark green things on its branches. The voices called them leaves, they also said these were called spruce trees.

Techno wanted to grab materials so he started chopping down the spruce trees to get wood. He opened his bag and saw that he still had a lot of golden carrots left so he was good on food for now. The voices kept telling him to mine underground while he was about to set a crafting table next to the Nether portal to make a pickaxe out of wood. Eventually, he complied, following the voice’s directions into a nearby cave where he placed the table in front of the entrance and started to grab the gray material around him. The wooden pickaxe wasn’t very fast at mining as the gold pickaxe was but it did the job. It had run out of usefulness when he had made a stone pickaxe and went deeper into the cave.

He had grabbed what the voices called “coal” and more stone, the voices told him to make torches, so he did. He also found a material called “iron”, the voices were very amendment that he take that one with him.

_‘get it techno’_

_‘iron pog’_

_‘E’_

_‘E’_

_‘get that shit’_

_‘mine it mine it’_

_‘E’_

_‘you can use it to make better tools’_

Now _that’s_ what sold him.

He had walked back up toward his crafting table to build an iron pickaxe before the voices told him to “smelt” the iron. He didn’t really know what that meant, but they told him to make something called a furnace. This was all so confusing. Everything was new and he didn’t know a single thing. He was confused but at the same time, he wanted to know more. He knew he would get to be able to experience more things with time so he sucks it up and makes a furnace.

After he smelts the iron, he goes back into the cave. Before he does, he notices the sky taking on an orange hue, but doesn’t think anything of it and goes into the cave. He ventures deeper and finds a few pieces of gold, except it wasn’t the same as the gold from the Nether. It didn’t drop into small little pieces, it had dropped the same way the iron had. The gold was at the very end of the cave so he went back up and mined some more coal on the way.

When he reached the entrance of the cave the ( _what the voices called_ ) sky had darkened significantly. He didn’t think too much of it and took the iron out of the furnace and stuck the gold in. He made an iron pickaxe and sat against the crafting table while watching the fire. He wondered what he would do after this, he could ask the voices later but right now he wanted to check on the portal. Just to make sure that this place is real.

Techno walks from the cave to the Nether portal taking a torch with him to light the way. He quickly put it out when he saw the purple light coming from the portal. He walked in front of the portal, contemplating if he should go back or not. He decides against it. He got away from the demons and Piglins and Hoglins and hadn’t seen a single monster since he got here. 

He listened to the swirl of the portal before hearing a hissing sound behind him.

_‘RUN’_

He listened to them this time and jumped to his right when the hissing got louder. When he jumped, a loud bang sounded out and he felt a large force hit his back. He must have blacked out for a second because when he looked up he was laying on the ground and his sword was knocked away. He checked his bag to see if anything had broken and realized his golden chest plate had broken in half so he had to take it off. Luckily, nothing in his bag or the bag itself was broken. He looked up and saw that the Nether portal was broken, which meant that there was no light around. Technoblade didn’t really know what attacked him, but he didn’t want to be at risk of being vulnerable again, so he lit a torch and walk quickly back to the cave.

_‘was that a creeper’_

_‘yea’_

_‘well no more nether’_

_‘E’_

_‘thats a good thing’_

_‘get to the cave’_

_‘E’_

_‘E’_

_‘he should fight more of them’_

_‘bad idea’_

_‘E’_

Technoblade had reached the cave and took out the gold from the furnace and pushed the crafting table and furnace into the cave. He used some of his cobblestones to block up the cave, with the only light was from the torches he had placed. He didn’t have any soft cloth to soften the ground with so the only thing he could do was lay on the cold hard ground and went to sleep.

\---

_‘and thats how you get diamonds’_

_‘not accurate’_

_‘its totally accurate’_

Techno had been walking for a few days, and in that time, he had learned a few of the mobs that existed in the Overworld. Zombies, Creepers, Skeletons, and Endermen usually come out during the night and hideaway in dark caves and deep forests. While he was traveling, he had found a herd of “cows”, at first they reminded him of Hoglins but when h got near them, they did not attack. The voices wanted blood, so he obliged and had killed one. The rest of the herd hadn’t seemed to care all that much, the only thing they did was move slightly farther away from him. He had taken some of the meat and cooked it, he wasn’t that low on food so he decided to just eat then and there. It had tasted pretty good, better than Hoglin meat, but he was fine with golden carrots for now

Technoblade had also found another cave when he went into this one, he had found a sparkling blue ore that hanged over a lava pool. The voices had been ecstatic when he saw it, so he had placed some cobblestone to get to it. When he mined it, the ore had almost fallen into the lava but Techno had caught it, there was another one so he had also mined it. The voices had called it a “diamond”, apparently, it was rare, rare enough that the voices had begged him to put it in his bag. So he did, along with the other ores.

When he came out of the cave he had 4 iron, 3 gold, 2 diamonds, and a few pieces of rock.

\---

He hadn’t really slept for a few days, so let’s just say when he heard the ghostly noise of a Phantom for the first time, it was not pleasant.

He had been walking on a mountain during the night, it was sparse of resources other than some coal and one lone tree. He had wanted to rest for a bit but since there were still monsters around him that he wanted to avoid he kept walking. When he turned away from the tree is when he heard it. Techno hadn’t really heard anything like it in the Nether before, so when he turned around to see what it was he didn’t expect to see a green-eyed monster flying right at him.

He jumped back and landed on his back, the impact had made him drop the torch near the tree, so, unsurprisingly, the tree lit up on fire fairly quickly. The whole tree being on fire attracted the attention of the mobs he was trying to avoid, though it had driven away the flying beast back up into the sky, he grabbed the torch and made a break for it when the zombies and creepers had gotten a little too close.

_‘haha techno thats a phantom’_

Well, he did not like them.

\---

After his encounter with the phantom, Technoblade had tried to find a place to sleep with no luck. Eventually, after a few more days of travel and trying to avoid phantoms, ( _which was unsuccessful by the way, they broke his helmet_ ) he had found a town. The buildings there were very different than the ones in the Nether. First of all, there was just more of them, buildings in the Nether weren’t very plentiful when he was traveling through it. They were also made out of wood from the surrounding forests, which the voices told him was called “oak wood”.

He was wary of if he should go into the town or not, as he had caught a glimpse of what they looked like and they had looked very different from himself. They were called “Villagers”, which he thought was a strange name but didn’t question it for long. He was eventually persuaded by the voices to enter the village after a long time just staring at it.

Surprisingly, when he set foot in the village, the residents didn’t really mind a piglin walking into their safe place. He wanted to ask one of the tenants if he could stay there for the night but he bumped into someone while he was walking. He stumbled for a moment before regaining his balance before looking up to apologize.

A giant iron beast was not what he anticipated to see when he looked up and it was not welcomed. The iron giant turned around and glared at the piglin but did not attack, it simply walked away from him while carrying a red flower to a child playing in the grass.

He stared at the two for a moment before walking away to find someone to ask if he could stay the night.

\---

He had approached someone called a “farmer” and asked if he could stay the night in the town, the poor guy had looked scared out of his mind when Techno walked up to him. The farmer said he didn’t really care as long as Techno didn’t try anything funny. He didn’t really know what that meant, but the farmer made him promise, so he didn’t do “anything funny”.

The cleric of the village had approached him and told Techno to follow him. The man had led him towards what he called the “church” and told Techno that they had set up a bed inside on the second floor. The sun was starting to go down so the man had walked off in a hurry to get home. Techno thought it was nice but realized that they probably did this for every traveler that came through here. Techno walked into the church and climbed up the latter onto the second floor and found a small wooden thing with a soft piece of cloth on it. So _this_ was a bed? He had to say it was better than he expected, it was soft and plush. Before he laid down he took off his remaining armor ( _boots and leggings_ ) and put it and his bag into the corner of the room. 

When Techno finally laid down in the bed he felt a small rush of energy before feeling immensely tired. Technoblade tried listening to any sounds around him but was too tired to keep his eyes open, so he closed his eyes drifted off to sleep.

\---

When Technoblade awoke, he felt a lot better than when he slept on the floor or Hoglin hide. He got up, rubbed his eyes, and was set on leaving the village that day.

While he was walking towards the exit he could have sworn he saw the iron golem glare at him, but when he looked back at it, the giant had already looked away. He kept walking. He had almost reached the edge of the town before he heard a yell come from behind him. He turned around and saw a, what the voices kept chanting at him, “librarian” running towards him. The man stopped in front of Techno to catch his breath. Once he did, the man had talked about how there was a larger town farther past this one, he said that Techno looked like he could fight so he also told him that the town had an arena to fight in. The man had told him that his appearance could possibly catch unwanted attention ( _which he thought was a rude thing to say_ ) so he had given Techno a soot-colored cloak to hide his pig features. He wasn’t against this idea, so he took off his bag and put the cloak on with the bag over it. The man had said farewell and took his leave, and so did Techno.

_‘that was kinda mean’_

_‘i thought it was nice’_

_‘E’_

_‘E’_

_‘he called techno ugly and gave him something to cover his ugliness with’_

_‘E’_

_‘wow.’_

_‘wait are we gonna fight’_

_‘later’_

_‘E’_

_‘gotta walk first’_

Technoblade tuned them out.

\---

The walk to the town the librarian had pointed out was farther than it seemed. It took Techno a day to get there. In that time, he found another cave in which he found some more iron and surprisingly, a few more diamonds. He smelted the iron and counted his jewels.

He had 6 iron, 3 gold, 5 diamonds, and a few more pieces of stone.

The voices wanted him to make a diamond sword but he still had his gold one, even if it was close to breaking, he didn’t want to waste it. Eventually, he found the town the librarian had talked about. When he got close to the entrance, he put the hood of his cloak up and walked in, the iron golem guards stationed near the entrance glared at him, but let him walk through.

The cloak didn’t cover his snout completely but was enough to draw attention elsewhere, especially since there were a lot of people around. He tried to walk past them but every time he did he bumped into a new person. They didn’t seem to care though, as they just kept walking, but he still felt bad.

He wanted to see what the librarian had said about fighting people in an arena was, so he walked through the crowded roads towards the giant building in the center of town. When he walked up to the entrance of the building he got stopped by the guards in front, he was worried for a second before they told him he needed to be registered into the system to play the games. He told them that he was new and didn’t know how to do that, they were understanding and pushed him in the way of the small little stand that had a medium-long line of people waiting.

He walked into the line and waited until it was his turn to talk to the women in front, he wasn’t that great at speaking English but since he had listened to the voices in his head since a very young age he had learned how to speak enough.

He approached the young woman sitting at the stand.

“Um, e-excuse-”

Before he could get the words out of his mouth the woman interrupted him, “Oi, are ya here to register?” 

He was slightly confused but answered yes.

“Ugh, Notch why,” the woman muttered under her breath, “alright the entrance fee is one diamond, you got that on you, or am I gonna have to kick you outta the line?”

“N-no, I have one right here” Technoblade reached into his back and rummaged around for a moment before pulling out a diamond and placing it on the counter.

“Okay, state your name, age, and occupation if you have one”

Technoblade didn’t know why he needed to say that but went along with it. “My name is Technoblade and I am um,” He didn’t know what to say, he had a feeling that the woman wouldn’t like it if he said 8.

_‘say 18’_

_‘17’_

_‘18 18 18’_

_‘18’_

_‘E’_

_‘16’_

_‘18’_

_‘E’_

_‘E’_

_‘E’_

_‘18’_

_‘18’_

_‘E’_

_‘18 yea’_

_‘oh no’_

_‘SAY 18!!’_

“I’m 18 and I don’t h-have an o-cu-pay-sion” Hopefully she believed that…

The woman looked at him before pressing buttons on a gray device in her hands, “Uh-huh. Anyway, this communicator will be your I.D. basically, you just need to show this to the guards and they’ll let you compete. It shows your coordinates, your health, date and time, and blah blah blah, I’m sure you got it.” 

She handed him the device, that he almost dropped, and a piece of paper while rolling her eyes, “With your purchase, you get a _free_ map of the area that you can use. Now _move_ pretty pink, you’re holdin up the fooking line.”

Techno looked behind him and muttered an apology to the woman before walking away.

_‘she’s kinda rude’_

_‘E’_

_‘she is peak women’_

_‘simp’_

_‘E’_

_‘E’_

_‘Truly disgusting that some “people” would do this horrible thing.’_

_‘dont you fucking start’_

_‘oh god’_

Technoblade wanted to fiddle around with the device the lady had given him but there were too many people around to let him stop. As he was looking over the sea of people to find somewhere to sit and rest, he swears he saw a spade-tipped tail walk into a building.

\---

Badboyhalo walked into the bar, he looked around for his companion for a moment before finding him sitting in a corner, fiddling with his blue beanie. Bad walked over and sat down at the table.

“Hey Bad, how’s it going?” Skeppy asked, sipping on his drink.

Bad looked down at his hands before speaking, “Hm. I saw someone new in town today.”

His friend across the table looked confused and set his drink down, “So? New people come in every day.” Skeppy patted his diamond box which sat on the table

“Well,” the demon tapped his claws on the table, “he was a piglin”

“Hmm,” the diamond man leaned forward “and why’d that catch your eye? He probably had a soul. ‘s why he’s not zombified”

“Well, I know that. It’s just,“ the demon sighed, “I think... I’ve met him before”

Skeppy crossed his arms and closed his eyes for a moment, thinking. The diamond man opened his eyes after a bit and grabbed the box of pure diamond that sat on the table and plopped it on his head.

“Hey Bad, wanna play bedwars?” He asked standing up and leaving some gold nuggets on the table.

“Um, sure, why not?” Bad responded before standing up.

“Great, that’s great, c’mon let’s go” The blue man waved his hand in a “c’mon” motion before walking away.

Bad smiled and followed after him, “I bet I can beat you this time!”, Bad said after catching up to him.

“No way! I’ll win for sure! There is _no way_ you can” Even with the box on his head, Bad could still read the sly grin on the diamond man’s face.

Bad laughed, “No, no I will win, just you wait!” Bad opened the door for his friend.

Skeppy turned and walked out the door, looking back at Bad, “Hell no, you can’t beat me!”

Bad let go of the door and followed him out, “Hey! Language!” Skeppy just cackled in response.

Somewhere in the back of Bad’s mind, he wanted to reach out to Skeppy’s hand but pushed the thought away.

In the front of Skeppy’s mind, was the thought of the piglin that Bad had seen, and how much he wanted to meet him.

\---

Technoblade had found a place to fiddle with the gray device the woman had called a communicator, the place was an alleyway between two buildings. After messing around with it, Techno found out how to type letters and words, he had also found a button labeled “Chat” and when he pressed it, it had brought up a storm of words and phrases going by fast. The way it moved reminded him of the voices and how they talked.

_‘looks like us’_

_‘our name should be chat’_

_‘E’_

_‘better than voices’_

_‘E’_

_‘hell yeah’_

Technoblade thought that it was a fitting name. But he still wondered about the “competing” the woman had mentioned, it sounded interesting. He walked back up to the guards in front of the entrance of the big building in the center and walked past them after showing the device and his information.

\---

Technoblade had learned a lot this past few weeks.

He learned what Bedwars and Skywars were, he had learned what the leaderboard was and when he did he really wanted to be on top. He played Bedwars more often, mostly because of the thrill it gave him.

The rush of winning and beating other players was amazing, he had seen his name go up the ranks and it filled him with joy. To have his skills recognized was a great feeling. In the Bastion, he was very limited at what he could do( _unless he snuck out_ ) until he and his group could make a successful hunting trip, and then when that happened, he had to become one of them and be stuck there forever.

Though the eyes on him while playing had reminded him of the warped forest, it didn’t feel like they were planning his demise. It had felt weird at first, hearing his name chanted by something other than voices in his head, but he went along with it. Yelling out phrases his chat had said a lot, “blood for the blood god” and saying “nerd” whenever he beat someone was fun. He always took his cloak off whenever he played, but he still wore it whenever he left the arena because he didn’t want to socialize with people he didn’t know.

People had started to chant “Blood for the Blood God” a lot while watching his matches were going on. It made him feel more powerful and energized whenever people said that. He didn’t really want this to end but he still wanted to explore more of the world, he was still having fun though, and the chat was having fun also. He thought that the world could wait a few more weeks, and kept fighting.

\---

The Art of Respawn

Mat G.T. Pat & Stephanie R. Pat

_The magic of Respawn is still a mystery to all of the creatures that live in this world. Many theories over the years have been brought up and many more debunked, however, with this book, we hope to uncover its secrets. Or, at least start too, because even though scientists have figured out a lot, there is still more to be unlocked._

_Multiple studies have been made on why beds have the ability to bring a person back from death, and they have all pointed back to the sheep’s wool they are made of. The wool, being used to craft the soft blankets and cozy pillows, and the bed frame itself, made from the wood of almost any tree._

_Now you may be wondering what crafting a bed has to do with how the Respawn mechanics and sheep correlate, but there is a reason. That reason being on how sheep are killed. Sheep are killed and sheared on farms almost monthly, for their wool. A study made by the RCG, or Respawn Community Group, showed that each month, a large number of sheep are killed for their meat and wool. And yet, the farmers almost never lose their sheep. Why? Because they Respawn._

_Now, it does seem impossible, but let me explain. Sheep’s wool has the amazing ability to bring someone back to life, and it can bring themselves back to life as well. This seems like an overpowered ability, except when you stop to realize that after a sheep is killed exactly 3 times it loses its power. You could argue that this happens with every mob, as humans also can come back from the dead, but you’d be wrong, because there is no evidence that any mob, besides humans and sheep, can respawn after death._

_Theories have been made about why only humans share this ability. A theory brought up by a researcher from the Corvarian Empire proposed that the same Ancient Civilization that made the End portals and Ocean monuments, as well as other mysterious buildings, connected the life forces between sheep and man. Though it is entirely possible, there is no evidence supporting this._

_Another theory states-_

Philza Minecraft’s reading was interrupted by cheering coming from across the lobby. Though it wasn’t uncommon for spectators of Bedwars matches to come through the portal excited, this one chant was strange.

“BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!!!”

“Did you _see_ how well he handled the pressure of those players? Amazing!”

“I know right?”

“Lame”

“Blood for the blood god!!”

“Hell yeah!”

“It was cool”

“Blood for the Blood God”? He could have sworn he had heard of that phrase before, he’d have to look in his book collection to see if he could find that phrase. The group of people had gathered around the leaderboard still chanting that phrase as they looked. The chant interested him but he thought he could always research later, he went back to reading. As he put his head down, he saw a flash of pink and a snout in the distance.

_Another theory states that the hero who freed the End a century ago, or “Angel of Death” as some people call them, had created the respawn cycle. Though this theory makes no sense, as there is no proof that the hero who defeated the dragon had this power, and evidence of Respawns happening before this era exists._

_There is not a lot of theories that ha-_

Wait. A pink snout?

A piglin in the Overworld???

Phil quickly looked up again to see the piglin in question had stepped into the exit portal into the town of Hypixel. Phil could feel his wings puff up in response under his coat to seeing it, but he quickly calmed down and stood up to follow it.

He had hoped that the piglin didn’t attack anyone for not wearing gold. But for some reason, it hadn’t clicked until he was halfway to the portal that if it didn’t attack anyone here, then it wouldn’t attack anyone out there. Phil calmed down a bit when this thought had crossed his mind, he had taken a breath and walked back to his seat on the bench.

Only to be hit in the shoulder when he turned around.

Phil grunted and grabbed his shoulder and looked up to see who had hit him and saw that they had walked away towards the exit portal already. He was about to yell out at them when a voice interrupted his thoughts.

“Um, excuse me?”

Phil turned around at the voice and answered, “Yes?’, before looking into the light-blue eyes of a demon. He was stunned for a moment, he hadn’t seen a demon out in the Overworld for quite some time. He was staring into the eyes of the figure when they started speaking.

“I just wanted to say sorry about my friend, he kinda bumped into you there.”

He was bewildered for a moment before responding, “Oh! Yes, well it’s quite all right.” He realized he was still holding his shoulder and quickly let go of it. “It’s just your friend there seems to have a shoulder of diamonds, haha” Phil laughed.

The demon looked worried for a moment before awkwardly laughing, “Haha! Yeah...yeah. Well, you dropped your book so I just wanted to give it back to you.” The dark figure handed him his book which Phil too with gratitude.

“Ah! Thank you!” Phil took it and placed it under his arm.

The demon scratched the back of his head and laughed, “Well, sorry again for my friend. I had finally beat him in Bedwars and he’s salty about it.”

Phil looked stunned for a second before responding, “It’s no problem, really! Maybe just tell your friend to watch where he’s going next time,”

The demon giggled before walking off to follow their friend, “Yes, I will. Have a nice day!”

Phil smiled, “You too!” he waved.

When Phil turned to walk back to his bench, he felt a weird feeling of familiarity when he was talking to the demon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me writing the beginning of the chapter: how tf do you describe the texture of a leaf
> 
> alternate summary: techno gains his first subscribers, skeppy and bad experience their first divorce, and phil reads about life and death and sheep while being old.
> 
> anyway, i hope you enjoyed that. skeppy and bad’s part was fun to write :) if youre wondering why bad isn’t with sapnap, well... how do demons get to earth from hell? they’re summoned, usually.
> 
> the lady the techno met is minx, i dont think i got her accent right but i wanted to include her because i think she’s funny. I also referenced another youtuber... maybe you caught it. 
> 
> btw if i didnt make it clear enough, phil is the angel of death the book is talking about. i was torn on making the end unaccessible and it being already explored. i didn’t know which to go with at first because ghostbur mentions that phil defeated the dragon but phil’s character doesn’t know what an end portal looks like, so either the theory that the fossils in the overworld and nether are ender dragon skeletons is canon in the smp or it’s simply an oversight on the writers part. probably the latter.
> 
> also, techno got canceled on twitter apparently for making a joke in 2017 about h*tler being a lesbian?? idk if people are offended by the lesbian part or the h*tler part but as a lesbian myself i think technoblade is actually pretty funny. Idk about canceling i dont use twitter lol
> 
> ANYWAY TIME TO PLUG MY CHANNEL AGAIN:
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDhhI1A8pTV0__gXhQzsE-Q?view_as=subscriber
> 
> i would like it if you subscribed but you dont have to if you dont want to
> 
> next chapter, a small timeskip happens, techno gets an invitation to an event while fighting his “rival”, said “rival” gets one too and runs off to tell his (boy)friend, and while philza is researching the blood god, he gets mail.


	5. you don't know my brain, the way you know my name

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Technoblade is annoyed, Skeppy is dramatic, and Philza worries a bit too much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one is shorter than the last one but still kinda long. anyway, i hope you still enjoy it. (also the title is from “message man” by twenty-one pilots)

A few weeks had turned into a few months.

A few months of Technoblade gaining a winning streak almost unbeatable and fans that he was wary of. Each battle he won the chat would get louder and louder, it would almost clog his brain if he didn’t already know how to block them out. He had also had learned new things about the Overworld, he had run out of golden carrots which had led him to buy more food, he had found potatoes and really enjoyed their taste, cooked or raw. His golden sword had finally broken when he was fighting mobs in a nearby cave, which led him to make a new diamond sword that had much more durability and was easier to kill mobs with.

He had also been mining a lot. He learned that the occupants of the Overworld had really valued gems and riches here as currency, same with gold for piglins. He had been staying in a rented apartment in the city of Hypixel for the past few months, he had to pay in diamonds to stay there, which was fine because he had enough time to go mining for hours on end. 

During his stay in Hypixel, he had met an annoying man named “Skeppy” who insisted he was Technoblade’s rival. He had seen the man as more of an acquaintance on good days and an annoyance on bad ones. Techno thought that he was nice enough, albeit a little annoying at times, but he didn’t fully trust him. He usually hid his face behind an entire block of diamond, which Techno thought was kind of a waste, and when he did take it off he was usually facing away from Techno. The man had also smelled like burnt souls, a sure sign of a deal made with a demon. Technoblade couldn’t figure out what the man could want, Skeppy was popular with people around the Server for making his own small events, he was rich, and, from what Technoblade had seen, he had a lot of friends.

Techno had even asked him about it and the man had brushed him off and walked away. He didn’t know what Skeppy wanted, but it probably wasn’t good.

He had wanted to wear the cloak less but he still didn’t really trust the people around him. He had actually seen other mobs walking around in Hypixel, though they usually tried to blend in with the humans. Technoblade didn’t know if it was because humans didn’t like them or because they didn’t like humans. Techno wanted to change that, which is why he really wanted to take off the cloak while not in a fight but he didn’t want attention outside of battles so he kept it on.

Techno had also learned about different championships that different Kingdoms and Factions have almost yearly. He had also heard of a rumor that a new tournament was joining the mix, there was no name for it but it sounded interesting.

Techno had also gotten new clothes, Skeppy had seen the sad improvisation of the clothes he was wearing and got him new ones. He had gotten Techno black pants that reached his ankles and a white dress shirt with long sleeves. He had also given Techno a big red cape with fluffy wool for the trim, Techno didn’t want it but he took it anyway and used it as a blanket in his apartment.

Technoblade had been training by himself when he heard heavy footsteps behind him. When he turned and swung the sword around he did not expect to see Skeppy standing behind him. Skeppy barely dodged the blade and fell backward to the ground.

“Woah!” Skeppy laughed, “watch where you’re swinging that thing!”

Technoblade looked unimpressed, “Hm, maybe you shouldn’t sneak up on people”

The man stood up quickly and waved his hands around, “I know, I know! But it’s just too much fun, did you see your face??” Skeppy cackled.

Technoblade snorted and turned around to attack the dummy in the empty training yard.

Skeppy stopped laughing and Techno could hear him stuff his hands in his pockets, “Y’know, my other friends like me more. Maybe I should go hang out with them..” the blue man huffed.

Techno knew what he was doing, and decided to play along and chuckled ”Maybe you should” 

Skeppy stammered, “W-well, I-I wouldn’t want you to be all alone, so I thought I should just make sure you’re not wallowing in your sadness,” the man said in a defensive tone while crossing his arms.

The piglin hummed and kept attacking the dummy before taking the wooden sword and slicing its head off. Technoblade walked over to the stand on the wall and placed the sword down before grabbing his own diamond one and sheathing it. The pig turned around and looked at the man in front of him with a bored expression.

Skeppy put his hands on his hips and looked at Technoblade, “You’re really hard to make conversation with, y’know?”

The piglin in question chuckled, “Yes, I know. Are we gonna fight now?” he pointed the sword at his opponent.

The man sighed, “Yeah, yeah, fine.” Skeppy unsheathed his own sword and they both walked over to the small training arena.

Technoblade was about to rush the man opposing him when suddenly they both heard a loud cry of a bird coming from above. When they looked up they saw two birds flying above them before diving down and landing on the training dummies near the two of them.

“What the hell?”, Even with the diamond box on his head, Techno could still imagine the confused look on Skeppy’s face.

“Uuh,” Techno pointed to the birds a few feet away, “should we be doing something about that?”

Skeppy shrugged and started walking over to where the birds were perched after he sheathed his sword. Technoblade did the same and walked behind. Even though Techno was wearing diamond leggings and boots, something he didn’t take off when training, and how he was taller than Skeppy, the blue man had very heavy footsteps. They sounded a lot like his diamond boots, now that he mentioned it, Skeppy’s entire body was covered by the box or his sweatshirt or his black gloves, he always wore baggy pants even when it was hot out. He wondered why.

Skeppy grabbed one of the birds and found a letter, when he read it Techno was startled by him screaming, “YES!” and scaring one of the birds away.

Techno walked closer to him to get a better look at what he was holding, “What? What is it?”

“No, you look at your own letter!” The blue man pushes Techno’s face away, in response Techno pushed him. The bird that Skeppy had taken the letter from had flown away but there was still another one waiting for Techno to take the rolled up piece of paper from it.

Technoblade walks over to the remaining bird and reaches out his hand, petting it for a moment before taking the paper from its grasp. Technoblade unrolled it and... did not want to read it in front of Skeppy, so Techno put it in his pocket to read later when he is alone.

His rival looks up at Technoblade, “What, you’re not gonna read it?”

“No, I’ll read it later,” Techno went back to petting the bird

“Ugh, fine,” Skeppy looked to the side with a hand on his hip, “so are we gonna fight now?”

Technoblade gave him a look before grabbing his cloak from the coat rack and walking off.

“Wh- HEY?? Techno!” Skeppy crossed his arms and turned away from the piglin, “ _fine_ , I don’t need you! I’ve got other friends!”

Skeppy realized he was talking to an empty training yard and grumbled his way home.

\---

When Technoblade arrived at his small apartment he threw his cloak against the couch and sat down. He opened the crumpled piece of paper and struggled to read the words. One of the reasons he didn’t want to read it in front of Skeppy was because, well, he was just learning to read.

In the Nether, piglins didn’t have a written language. They usually used body language and noises to indicate if they were feeling a certain emotion, usually, that emotion was anger. When Technoblade had first learned the language it wasn’t in written form, and he had struggled to read most words. He was getting better, but he still struggled. 

The letter was long and confusing, something about an event being held in a nearby mesa biome? What even was that? The letter had said that the tournament would be held weekly for a month and that a carriage would come the following week on Friday. If Techno wanted to go, all he had to do is join the travel group and show the guards there the letter. Technoblade was kind of… nervous. If he decided to go, this would be Techno’s first event outside of Hypixel. He didn’t even know his name had reached that far.

Technoblade thought that if he wanted to join this event, he better go and check on Rocket.

\---

When Skeppy had gotten home, he slammed open the door, stormed past his roommate who he had woken up, gone into his room, and fell face-first onto his bed.

Bad had been woken by Skeppy storming up to his room while he was taking a nap on the couch. While he was glad his friend was home early, he wished he would keep his door slamming to a zero. Bad rubbed his eyes and looked up the stairs to where Skeppy had stomped his way up. The demon wanted to sleep some more but decided his friend needed him more, so he put on an ‘awake’ face and walked to Skeppy’s room.

Skeppy usually exaggerated things for his fans. Now while he wasn’t an A-list celebrity, Skeppy did host a lot of small events where people could complete challenges for money. He was probably just upset that he had lost to Technoblade again, but Bad was sure he could cheer him up. Bad reached his room and knocked on the door.

“Hey, Skeppy? You in there?” Bad said after knocking.

There was a pause before he got a muffled, quiet, response, “...yeah..”

Bad hummed, “May I come in?”

The demon heard quiet shuffling before the door unlocked, Bad took a step inside and looked to see Skeppy already on his bed again while staring at his diamond box in his hands. He could see the small diamonds on the man’s face glistening in the darkness. The dark devil walked up to him and sat next to the half-diamond man and rested a hand on his shoulder before asking if Technoblade had beaten him.

“No, no he didn’t..” Skeppy had said.

Bad’s eyes widened, “So, you won? Skeppy that’s great!”

Skeppy stood up and paced around the room, “NO! I didn’t! We didn’t even fight at all!”

“Oh…” Bad looked down.

“We were about to fight but then we got interrupted and Techno just left!” Skeppy waved his arms around angrily.

Bad stood up and guided Skeppy back to sitting on the bed, “Okay! Okay, well. At least you didn’t lose! Maybe you can get him next time.”

The diamond man huffed, “There probably won’t even _be_ “a next time” because of-” Skeppy cut himself off.

“Because of what?” Bad put his hand on Skeppy’s arm as a comforting gesture.

The demon’s hand was still on Skeppy’s arm when the man had reached into his pockets and shoved a piece of paper in Bad’s face.

“Bad! Remember when I told you about that rumor about a new event coming up?”

\---

Somewhere, in the frozen tundra of Antarctica, an old bird reads.

It had been a few months since Philza had heard the “Blood-God” phrase and seen the piglin in Hypixel. Phil had scoured through his library to see if there was any mention of a God of Blood, with no luck so far. He was reading a book on old Gods for the fourth time when he heard the distant tweet of a bird. It was a carrier pigeon, when Phil had spotted it he immediately opened the window and brought the little guy to the fireplace.

“You alright there, little fella?” Phil asked the small avian, and dit nodded in return.

The bird was carrying two letters, one from his son, and one from a mysterious person. The latter was strange since he had told no one of his whereabouts besides his son. So, unless someone has high-jacked his son’s bird, he had no idea how this person could have gotten a letter. He decided to open the letter from his son first, he needed to hear some good news.

_Dear, Philza Minecraft,_

_Hi Dad! I’m writing to you because I wanted to tell you how it’s going so far, and what I’ve been doing this last year on the road. A few weeks ago the van had almost broken down, which I was worried about because that thing takes_ **so** _many materials to fix, and I met a very lovely woman in a nearby town. Her name is Sally and her father is a mechanic, she loves the sea and we’ve been going steady for a few months. It feels like I fall in love with her more every day. I don’t think her father likes me very much though, he seems to always glare at me whenever I come to pick her up from her house. I know when I left I said I wanted to explore the world but, Sally is my world. Oh, I don’t think I’ve mentioned it yet but, Sally is a fish, or a mermaid, either/or. She said her mother had taught her magic before she left and her legs can turn into a fishtail. When she told me this, we were standing on the docks, and I had picked her up and spun her around, but then we fell into the water… but it was still a fun date._

_As you know, my 16th birthday is coming up, and I want to spend it with Sally. I think I’m gonna take her on a date near the beach or by the lake. I know I can’t stay here forever, but I really love her. I think I’m gonna ask her to come with me, her father might not like it and I don’t know if she’ll say yes or not but… I hope she does._

_Anyway, I’m sure you don’t want to read me gushing about how much I love my girlfriend for two paragraphs. So maybe I’ll keep the rest of this short. A few days ago, after the van was fixed, a group of travelers had come through the town. Well, less of “through” and more of just a detour to get supplies I’m guessing. But, I had talked to one of them, he was a ram mob and he wore a nice blue sweater. Let me just say, it’s kinda intimidating to talk to someone who is an inch taller than you and has horns. He was nice enough, he had let me ask what the band of travelers was traveling to. Dad, have you heard the rumor that a new tournament was in the works? Well, the rumor s true! When I had asked this ram fellow where he was going, he had said that a new tournament was just starting up and that he wanted to make a name for himself other than being a pirate and working in the business. Which, is a strange way to make a living but I don’t judge. When I talked to Sally about it, she had gotten very nervous when I mentioned pirates but I assured her that I wouldn’t let anything happen to her as long as I was around, which calmed her down._

_I know you love hearing from me, and I know you’ll send me a letter back describing how much you miss me and how lonely you are with my_ **lively** _personallity. But I am planning on coming home soon. Well, I shouldn’t say too soon because I’m still planning on traveling with Sally. I want to travel some more with Sally after my 16th birthday for about a year, and I have a vague idea of coming to see you when I turn 18. I want you to meet Sally because you too might get along, but enough about her, I need to wrap up this letter._

_Well father, it was nice to write to you. Sally is calling me so I need to get going. I hope this letter reaches you and that you are well. I will write again, and I expect a letter from you to arrive soon. Your birds in the Arctic always seem to be faster than mine. Anyway, farewell, I hope to hear from you soon._

_With love,_  
_Wilbur (soon to be Soot) Minecraft_

Phil loved his son but sometimes he got lost in his thoughts, same as Phil, but maybe more so. He was curious about who this ‘Sally’ was, she sounded nice from what Wilbur had told him. He hoped he didn’t get heartbroken by this girl, which seemed unlikely but he was just worried. He actually hadn’t heard that rumor about a new tournament, which was strange because he usually did. Thinking about what his son had said about that rumor had reminded him about the other letter he had received. He set down the piece of paper on his desk and picked up the other letter. He looked over at the fireplace and saw that the bird had fallen asleep. The mysterious letter was addressed o him in handwriting that he was not familiar with, and a title that he _was_ very familiar with.

_Greetings, Angel of Death,_

Phil had risen so fast out of his chair that it fell to the floor and woken up the bird that was sleeping on the carpet, it flew towards the bookshelves and Phil didn’t see it again. Phil’s wings had puffed up and were taking up a lot of space in the study, he could touch both walls with them. Although he could use a glamor to hid them, it was hard to keep them under his coat. Luckily, he was alone now so he could reveal them to an empty room with no consequences, but he was still worried that people had figured out his identity. It had been about 100 years since he defeated the Ender Dragon, and most people believed that he was dead, but some still believed that he was alive and worshipped him. Well, they worshipped a title, not a person. Phil continued to read the letter.

_Or perhaps you prefer Philza? Ah, it doesn’t matter. We, of Star Corporation, are working on creating a tournament that will be held in a week’s time from when you receive this letter. It was hard to track you down but we hope you do not mind the intrusion. Enough fluff, let’s get down to business._

_We, Star Corporation, would like to cordially invite you, the Angel of Death, to our new tournament, titled Minecraft Monday after the name of our planet’s less common name, Minecraft, to compete in a series of challenges with a partner that will be chosen by our team of Admins for you, you can invite your own partner if they pass a skill test to be let in. If you win you will get a sum of money, $10,000, or 100 diamond blocks, split between you and your teammate. If you decide to compete, which we hope you will, all you need to do is go to the following coordinates or find the nearest traveling groups going to this location. To join the group all you need to do is show this letter to the guides and they will let you tag along._

Phil looked over the coordinates, and read the letter again. And again, and again. His breathing started to quicken and his grip tightened on the letter. It took Phil a minute to calm down, the feathers on his wings were slowly puffing down and he leaned forward on his desk with his head in his hands. Phil took another moment to slow his breathing, and stood up straight. He turned around and picked up his chair from the floor, when he propped it up he sat down again and stared at the letter.

He didn’t really want to go to it, but he was scared that if they could find out that information, that they probably knew about his son. If that information got out against his own will… well he didn’t really know what would happen. He wanted to control the situation and decided to take matters into his own hands.

Phil will join this tournament, but he will take his place in the limelight, on his own terms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hahaha, we hear from wilbur in this chapter :) in a comment, i said that he was 18 but i realized that i wanted to make his age difference with tommy less. also, wilbur and tommy have not met yet, wilbur finds this feral child on his travels and then adopts him as his brother. i hope you enjoyed this chapter, i had fun writing the letter parts.
> 
> just to be clear, minecraft monday is not blackmailing phil, phil is just paranoid that something bad will happen. i never really watched minecraft monday when it was at its height so i had to watch a history video on it TWICE to get an idea of it. i didn’t even like it that much, seems too surrounded by drama.
> 
> phil is wilbur’s biological father, tommy is will’s brother, and techno is like the cool older cousin that everyone wants to hang out with. now wilbur does not show up in person for a while, but he does write letters to phil from time to time. also, phil lives in the arctic, it is NOT the antarctic empire yet but eventually, it will be :)
> 
> fundy had not been born yet, let alone conceived, but he will be soon and sally does not leave immediately (she will one day tho). again i hope you enjoyed it and if you did… maybe give a kudos or a comment :) i hope you have a good day
> 
> techno mentions a horse named rocket here. if you dont know who rocket is, he was techno's horse in techno’s video called “minecraft but tnt spawns on me every 10 seconds”. Carl will show up eventually, in fact, rocket is carl’s grandpa.
> 
> next chapter, 4 people travel, minecraft monday rises and falls, a rival turns into a maybe friend, and phil and techno finally meet.


	6. the sound of a thousand voices calling your name

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A pig, a bird, a diamond, a demon, and a ram walk into a bar...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i dont really like this chapter, but i hope you still enjoy it. anyway, title is from "how did you love" by shinedown (which is a song that really fits dream smp go listen to it) also i edited how minecraft monday worked bc.. idk i just dont like it

The chat had finally convinced Technoblade to compete in the tournament.

After checking on Rocket, his horse, the chat had bullied him into joining the stupid competition. At least, if he wins, he can get money out of this thing. Rocket had been doing fine, the poor horse was getting on in his years even though he had just gotten him. He was still fast though, which Techno was grateful for.

The letter had mentioned a mesa biome. At first, Techno didn’t know what that was, but the chat later told him that it was a biome covered with red clay ( _he did know what that was either_ ) and was very rich with gold ( _which he didn’t care for all that much since he had found diamonds, but his armor **was** starting to wear-down_).

There wasn’t any map or compass attached with the letter, so Techno had to make do with following the group of people that stopped at the edge of Hypixel to pick up supplies. Before Techno had walked to the group at the edge of town, he had packed Rocket with some supplies. He filled his bag with most of his valuables, his money, his tools and weapons, and the red cloak that Skeppy had bought for him. Techno took Rocket by the reigns and walked him to the edge of the city. When he passed through the gates, the iron golem guards didn’t glare at him.

When Technolade saw the group of people outside the gates he didn’t expect to see so many. He walked up to one of the guides feeding the horses of the wagon being pulled. The wagon was pretty big when Techno had taken a glance inside of the open door, a few people were inside but some were sitting and standing around the wagon stretching their limbs. Technoblade had expected to see Skeppy here already, but he guessed he was running late or something.

Techno walked into the shade made by the trees and started to pet Rocket on the nose. He started to space out and listened to the clutter of voices in his head.

_‘adventure!!!’_

_‘hell yea’_

_‘rocket’_

_‘a lovely boy’_

_‘E’_

_‘E’_

_‘i hope techno will win’_

_‘E’_

_‘nah’_

_‘cringe’_

_‘E’_

_‘E’_

_‘damn’_

_‘ok’_

_‘techno should win’_

_‘E’_

_‘maybe’_

_‘yeah’_

Since Technoblade was occupied by the voices in his head, he couldn’t hear the quiet sounds of hoofs walking on the grass.

“Hey,”

Technoblade jumped and turned around to face the voice. When he turned around he saw a mob with white fur and two horns on their head, they were wearing a light blue sweater with black pants, they also had hooves. A weird combination, but who was he to judge?

The strange mob looked Techno up and down before look at his eyes that laid under Techno’s cloak before asking, “Are you a piglin?”

Technoblade stared for a moment before answering, “Uh, yep..?”

The man laughed for a moment, “Haha! Sorry, sorry, that was rude of me,” Techno realized that he was holding a bottle of a strange liquid when the man took a swig from it, “I probably should introduce my self before asking people that. Anyway, my name is Jschlatt.” the man pointed to himself.

Techno was still kinda stunned and didn’t answer right away, before realizing the man was waiting for an answer, so Techno told him his name.

“Technoblade, huh?” the man scratched his chin, “sounds like a pretty important name.”

Oh God, Techno was not good at social interaction, “uuh, yeah I guess…”

The man looked back at him, “Oh I should probably tell you what mob I am, huh?”, he put his hands on his hips, “I’m a ram, from the snowy mountains, I don’t know if you know where that is since you seem kinda new and that piglins are usually from the Nether”

There was a small pause before Techno replied, “Oh, no, it’s fine. And I don’t really know where that is, I am still kinda new uuhh,” Techno gestured around them, “here.”

Schlatt’s ear twitched, “Ahh, yeah I figured, plus you’re one of the only mobs here, heh,” he laughed, “the rest are human, or mostly human anyway, all kinda boring if ya ask me,”

“Yeah, yeah, I haven’t really met too much of… anybody? I’ve been mostly just on my own for a few months,” Techno awkwardly laughed

Jschlatt walked over to the tree Technoblade was standing by and leaned against it, “Yeah, I just wanted to come and talk with you. You seemed kinda lonely, but if you want to spend time with your horse that’s fine too man”, Techno realized that the ram was almost as tall as him, he hadn’t seen too many people reach his height since he had come to the Overworld.

Techno’s eyes widened for a moment, “Uh, no, no, it’s fine. I think it would be good for me to talk to other people for a little bit.” No matter how much he didn’t want to.

“Heh, yeah. Hey so, what do you think about this Minecraft Monday thing?”

Technoblade and Schlatt talked about different subjects for the next few minutes, they talked about how weird the letter was and Techno had also learned from Schlatt that most mobs weren’t allowed in some smaller event, which he thought was stupid. They talked about where they had come from, Schlatt more than Techno. This continued for a few more minutes until they were interrupted by a voice that Techno recognized.

“Hey Techno.”

Technoblade looked away from Schlatt to address the person dressed in blue in front of them and pulled down the hood of his cloak.

“Hello, Skeppy,” Techno said with an annoyed tone.

Skeppy laughed, “Heh, so you really did get an invite to this, huh?”

Techno paused before responding, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, nothing, nothing.” Skeppy crossed his arms, “It’s just… I expected someone more… famous to be attending this thing.” the man leaned forward a bit

The piglin snorted, “and, you’re famous? You can’t even beat me in a fight.” Techno’s eyes narrowed

Skeppy stuttered, “I-I can and I will!” he pointed at Techno, “Just wait, pigman. I’ll win this tournament”

Before Techno could respond Jschlatt joined in, “Ayy buddy, nice insult. What are you racist now too?” the ram pointed at the blue dressed man. Techno laughed along with Schlatt.

Skeppy growled and was about to respond but before he could, a dark hand grabbed his shoulder, accompanied by a firm voice saying his name.

“Skeppy.”

Skeppy turned around to address his friend, “What?!”

“You shouldn’t be causing trouble, at least not now.” The other figure argued

Skeppy grumbled and shifted to better face the person behind him, in doing so, he allowed Techno to see past his shoulder and see the light-blue eyes of a demon. Technoblade froze, he didn’t think he’d ever see one in the Overworld. The demon looked familiar, but Techno couldn’t think straight. His instincts were telling him to run, to get away from it, but he knew that it would draw more attention to him if he just ran away from the small group.

Skeppy and the demon were bickering while Jschlatt was just looking on in confusion. He turned to Techno and asked if he knew this guy, which Techno said, “yes he did, sadly”. Jschlatt took another drink from his bottle, he offered some to Techno but he said no. The dark devil and Skeppy were still arguing before the demon convinced his friend to let it go, they walked off with Skeppy giving a glare under the diamond and the demon giving an apologetic look.

Technoblade and Jschlatt look at them for a moment before returning to their small talk. Eventually, the guides said that it was time for them to go. Most people got inside the carriage to ride it to the event, but Techno ( _and surprisingly, Skeppy’s demon friend also had a horse_ ) had gotten on his horse, Rocket, and planned to follow the group until they got to the event itself. They should arrive in a few days.

\---

Philza Minecraft was currently traveling through the Nether.

The Nether wasn’t the safest way to travel, considering that there is a lot of things to die from, but it was the fastest. A lot of studies that Phil had read showed that traveling through the Nether was eight times faster than traveling through the Overworld. Most people knew this, although the Nether was somewhere a lot of people didn’t like. Some people thought it was a sin to got to the Nether, some even thought that if you even look at a portal, you would end up there after you die. Neither of those was true, Phil knew from experience.

He was using his wings to fly over a particularly big lava lake, which probably wasn’t the best idea since a Ghast could always shoot at him, but he had a bow just in case. He didn’t have any armor with him, since he didn’t really think that the event organizers would allow it. He did have a diamond sword with him.

Phil had finally reached the end of the lava lake and spotted the portal, the purple glow was kinda hard to miss in the red landscape. He landed a couple of feet away from it with no issue and he steps through the glowing purple lights.

\---

When Technoblade arrived at the event, he didn’t expect it to be so loud. A lot of people were there, some were competitors but a lot were fans/spectators invited to come and watch the tournament. He couldn’t tell the voices outside and inside of his head apart, some people were quickly walking to and from the locker rooms.

It took Technoblade a few minutes to find the stables to put Rocket in but he found it eventually. He didn’t have to pay them since he was a contestant in Minecraft Monday. After he dropped of Rocket, he walked his way towards where he was supposed to stay. One of the mods had been handing out maps of the grounds, which Techno used to find the apartments. When he found his room, he went over to the bed, which was very comfortable, and fell fastly asleep.

Tomorrow, the games will start.

\---

The following weeks went like this:

The first week he won, which he did not expect, but it wasn’t unwelcomed. When he was receiving his cash, he could feel people’s eyes on him.

The second week was the same as last time, he won first place again. This time he was paired with someone named iBallisticSquid, who was a squid mob. In the lobby, people started to avoid him more. He received less cash than last time.

By the third week, Technoblade had come _so_ close to getting to first-place, but he just couldn’t make it. He felt like he was climbing up a steep mountain with no way to get to the top. 

Week four wasn’t the best. The tournament had to be canceled before it even started because one of the people who were supposed to be checking to see if the arenas were safe had injured themself.

When week five had started, Technoblade’s partner had to leave in the middle of it. So Techno wasn’t doing too hot. After it had ended, Skeppy came into the locker room and gloated about how he was going to win the next one. Which Techno brushed off, he didn’t really care if he gloated about certain things, he just wanted to know why Skeppy felt the need to tell Techno that he was going to beat him at every opportunity.

It was week six when Technoblade met Jschlatt again. They had fought in Hunger games, surprisingly, Schlatt was a good fighter. Techno had fought with all his might to get as many points as possible, Jschlatt as well. They hadn’t won, but Technoblade was happy. Happy enough that Jschlatt had convinced him to go to a bar, Schlatt asked him if he wanted any alcohol but Techno declined. So Technoblade had ended up dragging a drunk Jschlatt back to the apartment building, it took a while to find Schlatts room because he was being irritable and wouldn’t really listen.

In week seven, oh boy week seven. In week seven they had added a new game, Build Battle, in which you would build something with your partner for other people to vote. Apparently, something had gone wrong with the voting system. If you voted once, sometimes your vote would duplicate or sometimes triple, and give the builders more points. So technically, with the glitched-out points from build battle, Skeppy and his demon ( _apparently named BadBoyHalo_ ) had won Minecraft Monday. But, Technoblade and his partner could have won without the glitched points given to Skeppy and his teammate. Skeppy had made sure to really stick it to Techno when he had found out. His partner had tried to calm him down, which Technoblade had appreciated, but to no avail. 

Eventually, a mod stepped in and said that they would have to split the money because they didn’t want it to seem unfair. Technoblade was fine with it, but he could tell Skeppy was feeling antsy about it. Thankfully, his partner convinced Skeppy to share the money.

“Why would I want to share the money?”

His friend put his hand on the blue man’s shoulder, “Skeppy, it’s only fair!”

Skeppy looked offended, “But we won!”

The demon shook his head, “No, we won from the glitched points. If those didn’t exist, we wouldn’t have won,”

Skeppy walked away with his hands in his pockets while his demon talked with the mod about the money. Technoblade could tell that the staff member was slightly anxious talking to him but continued like it was normal to be talking to someone who was technically dead.

In week 8, Technoblade met someone interesting.

\---

Technoblade was in the locker rooms before the games started, he had finally stuck to wearing that bright red cape that Skeppy had gotten him a while ago. He was listening to the voices talk about nonsense when he heard the door open. At first, he expected it to be Skeppy, but it was actually who he was teaming with that week.

Techno’s back was turned when he heard an unfamiliar voice.

“Hey, mate”

Techno turned around and looked up to see a blond man standing there with a green hat ( _it looked familiar... maybe he saw it on some show?_ ). The man had a friendly face, and Techno stood up to greet him.

“Hey, I’m uh Technoblade” Techno stuck out his hand to shake

The blond man grabbed his hand and shook it, “Yes, I’ve heard. You’ve won a few of these Monday’s correct? I’m Phil, by the way,”

Technoblade let go of his hand and responded, “Yeah, I have. I don’t think I’ll get too much money this time though, so just a heads up,”

Phil loosely crossed his arms and had a confused look on his face, “Well, that seems a bit unfair. You would think that everyone would get the same amount every time.”

Techno yawned a bit and stretched, “Yeah, well, guess they’re not completely fair,” he sat down on the bench, and Phil followed him, he thought he saw something move under the blonde man’s coat, “So, how’d you get here? People say only popular people get in,”

Phil looked up at him, “Are you saying I’m boring?”

Technoblade’s eyes widened, “N-no, No! That’s n-not what I’m saying, I just meant th-” but Techno was interrupted by the man sitting next to him laughing and wheezing

The piglin looked at the blonde man in confusion, he continued to laugh for another moment before wiping the tears from his eyes, “No, no, I’m joking, I’m joking,” Phil took a breath before continuing, “I didn’t mean that, I’m sorry,” he leaned forward a bit, “I know you didn’t mean it like that,”

Technoblade sighed, “I thought you were serious for a second there,” 

Phil giggled again, “Yes, sorry again, it’s just you looked so serious,”

Techno laughed, and the two continued to talk about the event and what their game plan was. They talked about nonsense and things that Techno didn’t really talk about to his previous teammates. Techno felt like he could trust Phil, he didn’t know why. Maybe because of the way he laughed at his jokes, or because he didn’t talk to him like Techno was going to suddenly kill him. They kept going until the start of the tournament. They fought hard, found buttons, and played bingo. When they checked the scoreboard at the end, Philza Minecraft and Technoblade had won the last week.

In the back of his mind, Technoblade couldn’t help but feel that Phil avoided his question.

\---

Skeppy walked back to his shared apartment, he was still kinda bummed out that he didn’t win but he had enough money. He had wanted to win because he wanted to hold something over Technoblades head, but he realized as he looked at the scoreboard that Techno probably deserved it. He had fought hard but he didn’t really win, even with the glitched points.

When Skeppy had walked through the door of the temporary apartment, he was tackled with a hug from his best friend. Bad was talking about how much he missed him since he couldn’t join in this week. The diamond man was glad that his friend had thought of him like that but was starting to have trouble breathing because of the hug.

Skeppy patted Bad’s back, “Hey, could you maybe let go?”

Bad tensed up for a moment before letting go of him and started apologizing, Skeppy put up a hand to silence him and closed the door. He grabbed the demon’s shoulder and moved him to sit on the couch with him. They talked the day away with Skeppy talking about how he definitely totally beat Technoblade in Hunger Games and had totally won the whole week. His demon friend went along with it, ‘oo’-ing and ‘aaa’-ing at almost every turn. Even if Skeppy exaggerated a lot of things, he was a good storyteller.

BadBoyHalo and Skeppy passed out on the couch together, long after the sun went down and the moon came up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope you enjoyed this. uuuhh idk what to say here.. 
> 
> anyway, i cant believe how many people actually enjoy this story, it just started bc i thought there wasn't any long fics with techno being like, a _full_ piglin. if you enjoyed leave a kudos or a comment, they help my motavation when writing.
> 
> um ok bye.


	7. let’s have an adventure!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Friendships start and enemies end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi uuuhh, i hope you enjoy this. read the end notes for some news about future updates

Before Skeppy and BadBoyhalo had fallen asleep, they had an important conversation.

BadBoyHalo was still laughing about one of Skeppy’s weird stories he told. He appreciated it, especially since it had been more than a decade since he was in the Overworld. A thought of someone he had left behind crossed his mind, but he shooed it away. He was enjoying himself, laughing, and just hanging out with the diamond man. He thinks that being summoned for protection a few months ago was the _~~second~~_ best thing to ever happen to him.

Skeppy had taken off his beanie and diamond box, so Bad could see the small freckle-like diamonds on his face glistening in the moonlight from the open window. He knows why he hides his face, because of those hunters who wanted the diamonds that Skeppy could make, but he wished he didn’t have to hide.

Eventually, the topic had circled back around to Technoblade. Whenever the piglin was brought up, Skeppy would either get competitive or get in a depressed mood. He knew Skeppy didn’t hate him, but he was still kinda mean to him at times.

“Skeppy, all I’m saying is that sometimes... You might be a little mean to him,” Bad said trying to calm Skeppy down.

“So?! He doesn’t even take me seriously!” When they started the argument, Skeppy had put his diamond box back on, but Bad could still tell he had a mad expression on his face.

Bad facepalmed lightly, “That’s not the point Skeppy! Just because he doesn’t take you seriously doesn’t mean you should insult people like what you did during the beginning of the event,”

Skeppy crossed his arms and groaned, “I know, I know! It just slipped out, I didn’t even realize that I had said it until after I did!” He flopped back down on the couch.

The demon put a hand on his friend’s shoulder, “I know you didn’t mean it, which is why you should apologize,”

Skeppy sighed and took off the diamond box, “I… probably should. But just… not now it’s late,”

Bad took his hand off of the diamond man’s shoulder, “Yeah, we should probably go to bed soon,” he laughed awkwardly

The man sitting next to him laughed, “No, not yet. We can stay up for a little longer,”

When BadBoyHalo fell asleep, he dreamt of a little boy he had left alone.

\---

After Minecraft Monday had ended, Technoblade didn’t really know where to go. He could go back to Hypixel and continue playing Bedwars with people or he could leave and explore the world. Going back to Hypixel would mean he would have to buy another apartment, which he definitely had the money for, but he didn’t want to stay in one place forever. Most people there would know him because he basically didn’t even use the cloak at all now, he wore his red cape all the time. One person had come up to him while he was walking to the locker rooms with Phil and had asked him how he had won so many times, the fan was escorted out of the lobby.

Phil and Techno had been talking in the locker rooms after the encounter with the rogue fan when Phil brought up an interesting topic.

“Hey, Techno?” Phil asked, leaning against the locker next to Techno’s

Techno closed his locker and looked at the shorter man next to him, “Yeah?”

Phil loosely crossed his arms and sighed before speaking, “You have somewhere to go after this, right?”

Techno took a moment to think, did he have somewhere to go? He sold his apartment in Hypixel so he couldn’t really go back to that. He could go exploring more, which he had always wanted to do. He would prefer to have someplace to go back to and relax, but he was thinking about doing that with Hypixel. He definitely had the money for it but he didn’t want to stay there forever.

After a moment, Techno finally responded, “Uh, actually I’ve just been thinking about traveling around. But it would be pretty nice to have a place to come back to and relax,”

Phil looked thoughtful for a moment and stopped leaning on the lockers, “Do you… want to set up a base at my place?”

Technoblade looked away for a moment and tried to collect his thoughts. He didn’t really have a place to stay and Phil was offering one, but he had only met Phil a few hours ago. He did trust him, mostly because he had actually talked to him a little bit outside the event, but he still had only just met him. The chat decided to chime in with their wisdom at this point.

_‘do it’_

_‘dadza’_

_‘this man is a dad’_

_‘i like this guys funny words man’_

_‘where he live tho’_

_‘go go go go go’_

_‘dadza’_

_‘dad man’_

_‘dadza’_

_‘dadza’_

_‘dadza’_

_‘dadza, making sure children have homes since the 1800s’_

_‘hes not that old is he?’_

_‘he is’_

_‘old man’_

_‘he is old’_

_‘oldza’_

_‘old’_

_‘old’_

_‘old’_

_‘old’_

_‘old’_

_‘old’_

_‘old’_

Okay, enough of that.

Technoblade must have taken a bit too long to respond because Phil was looking at him with a concerned expression. 

“Phil, I…”, Techno finally replied after a minute, “I think I’ll take you up on that offer,”

The blonde man laughed quietly, “Yes, we can set out in the morning,”, Phil put a hand on Techno’s arm, “We should probably get going, eh? It’s getting pretty late,”, he pointed to the door.

Techno looked at the door and then back at Phil, he slung his bag over his shoulder, “Yeah, let’s get back to the apartment, I’ve got everything I need,”

Technoblade and Philza walked to the apartment building with smiles on their faces.

\---

The next day, Technoblade met Philza at the edge of the Mesa biome.

“Hey, Techno”, Phil did a small wave when he approached with Rocket.

Technoblade did a small wave back, “Hullo,”

The two men talked about where they were going, how far it was, and how long it could take to get there. They were interrupted when Techno heard the familiar heavy footsteps of a man in blue. 

Technoblade turned around to address him and saw his demon friend standing behind the blue man, Techno’s eyes widened a bit before he steeled his nerves and looked down to address Skeppy.

With how the box was positioned, it looked like it was looking at the floor. Techno wouldn’t be surprised if he actually was looking down, he had his hands in his hoodie, and his shoulders were slightly scrunched up.

“Hey,” Skeppy said in a defeated tone.

Techno responded in a slightly happier tone and a small wave, “Hullo,”

Skeppy reached behind his head to scratch his neck before realizing that it was covered by diamond, “I, uh, I just wanted to...”

He looked behind him at the demon and whispered, “Do I have to do this?”, to which the devil replied with, “Yes”.

The blue man looked back at Technoblade again, “I know it was kinda a while ago but,”, he sighed, “I just… wanted to say sorry about what I said about you awhile back,”

Techno raised an eyebrow, he thinks he knows what Skeppy is referring to. But it could be for just bothering him for all these months he had been in the Overworld. The piglin asked him to elaborate and Skeppy told him that he felt bad about basically harassing him for these past few months and that he was, again, really sorry for it.

Technoblade didn’t really know what to say, he had never received an apology before. In the Nether, piglins weren’t supposed to apologize for their actions, he guessed it had something to do with their violent nature that he had grown up around.

The piglin sighed, “I… don’t know what to say um,” Techno scratched his neck, “thanks for the apology… um, I guess I forgive you then,”

Skeppy perked up, “Really?”

Technoblade responded with a “Yes”, and Skeppy fist-bumped the air before clearing his throat and sticking his hands back in his pockets.

“Yeah, so,” Skeppy stuck his hand out, “I know you probably don’t wanna be friends with me, but maybe,” the blue man sucked in a breath, “we can be on good terms,”

Techno stared at his hand for a moment before reaching out and taking Skeppy’s hand in his, “Yeah, we can be on good terms,” he let go of Skeppy’s hand.

Skeppy’s tense shoulders dropped, “Oh good,” he put his hands in his pockets once again, “I was worried you wouldn’t be open to that,”

The piglin laughed, “Yeah… um so, are you going back to Hypixel?” Techno was wondering because he, himself, definitely wasn’t.

Even with the diamond box, Techno could still tell Skeppy had a thoughtful look on his face, “Yeah, we have a house there,” the blue man pointed to his friend behind him, which Techno tried to avoid looking at, “we were thinking of maybe moving, but uh, that might not be for a while,”

Techno let out a breath of air, “That makes sense,” he turned slightly to the side and pointed to Phil, “He and I are going to be going back to his base,” in response to being pointed at, Phil did a small wave.

Skeppy and Techno stood there in silence for a minute being saying their farewells and walking in opposite directions.

\---

Phil and Techno started walking out of the Mesa biome and into the Savana, with Techno on Rocket and Phil walking a bit behind him. Techno was worried that he would lose Phil if he went too fast on his horse so he was going at a much slower pace than normal. He had stopped his horse and asked Phil if he wanted to trade places with him, Phil said no. So he had just wait a bit until Phil caught up to him.

By the time they reached the end of the Savana, it was starting to get dark. Techno was getting worried that they would run into monsters that came out at night, but Phil took out a torch and they didn’t get interrupted. Techno didn’t want to leave the light of the torch and got off of Rocket, he grabbed him by the reigns and walked next to Phil.

They entered an oak forest and walked in silence for a while, with Techno walking next to the blonde man. They had been walking for a few minutes in the forest when Techno asked the man next to him how much longer they would be walking, he replied that they were about halfway there. All they had to do was go through the portal.

Techno stopped walking, halting Rocket along with him, which allowed Phil to walk ahead of him for a second.

“What portal?”

Phil stopped walking and turned around to address Techno, “The Nether portal, it will be quicker to get there,”

Techno just stared at Phil for a moment, he didn’t really want to go back there. He had just gotten out of the Nether a few months ago, he wasn’t ready to go back.

“Phil, I..” Techno paused, “I don’t really want to go through the Nether again,”

The man in front of Technoblade paused, “What do you mean again...oooh,” Phil realized what he had said

“Yeah..” Techno rubbed the back of his neck, “I just don’t really like it,”

Phil sighed before walking to Techo and reaching up to put a hand on his arm, “I’m sorry Techno I should have realized,” he sighed, “I just got caught up in the excitement of this whole thing,”

“It’s fine, Phil,” Techno looked down at him, “Is there any other way we can get there?”

The blonde man looked away in thought, “...Not… really? I mean, there is always the long way round but that could take months,”

Techno groaned, “Okay, okay, so,” he moved his hands while talking, “we have to go through the Nether, which I can maybe deal with, but we also can’t avoid it?” He looked back at Phil

Phil had an awkward smile on his face and nodded, “Yep, pretty much,”

The piglin sighed and asked how they would travel through the Nether, Phil’s face darkened for a moment before he turned away from the pigman.

“Phil?”

He turned slightly towards Techno, “Tell me Techno,” he turned fully towards him, “Have you heard of the Angel of Death?”

\---

So it turns out trying to carry an almost 6 ft piglin over a giant lava lake was a little harder than they had anticipated.

Phil had told Technoblade about how Phil’s old title was the Angel of Death, named after his dark wings. He also told Techno about the Enderdragon, and how he had defeated it 100 years ago. The piglin didn’t even know people could live that long, to that Phil simply laughed.

When they went through the portal, they realized that they had no way of carrying Techno’s horse, so they had to improvise and left him near the portal in the Overworld to collect later. Phil offered to carry Techno across the lava lake, Techno wondered why he didn’t just build a bridge across it, Phil said he was still working on getting materials for it.

When they flew over it, Phil realized that Techno was… very tall and heavy. Phil’s bones were hollow, to allow him to get his body off of the ground, which made him not be able to carry heavy things while in flight. This included an almost 6 ft tall piglin.

They kept going up and down, almost falling into the lava multiple times. Techno almost fell off of Phils back multiple times, if you ask him, he definitely did not let out a loud screech that sounded like a ghast. When the other side of the lava lake showed up, Phil dived straight for it and landed.

Phil’s feet touched the spongy texture of the Netherrack and he dropped Techno, who in turn laid on his back taking deep breaths.

The winged man looked to his partner, “You alright there mate?”, Techno looked at him and glared, to which Phil just laughed.

The piglin stood up, “Remind me to never go flying again,” Phil laughed again and said he’d be sure to remind him. The two carried on their way through the Nether, making small talk along the way. Technoblade learned that Philza had a son named Wilbur and that he was traveling around the world, Phil learned that Techno had spent 8 cycles ( _which is about 8 years in the Over-world_ ) in the Nether. So Techno was technically only about 8 years old, which was very funny and sad at the same time.

“So, Techno,” Phil said as they were walking, “you’re only eight?”

The piglin in question pointed at him angrily, “I might be but I know I’m an adult by piglin standards,”

Phil put his hands up in defeat, “Yes, yes, I know,”

They continued walking until they reached the portal. The portal led inside of Phil’s base inside a snowy mountain in the Arctic. When Techno exited the portal, the sudden shift between boiling heat and shivering cold was a surprise for him, so he had shivered really hard when he walked through.

Phil turned around, “Techno?”, he walked up to the freezing pig, “You okay there?”

Technoblade looked at Phil, “I’m f-fine, it’s j-just co-old,”

The blonde man made a noise, “I can start a fire, let’s go into the other room,” he helped Techno into his library and set him down in his chair while he started a fire in the fireplace.

Once the room started to heat up Techno visible relaxed, he looked outside the window he was sitting next to and saw a small white puff fall from the sky. He turned his head to look at Phil, who was poking the fire with a stick.

“Hey, Phil,” the man turned to look at Techno, “What’s that stuff outside?”

Phil walked over to the window Techno was sitting next to and saw the snow falling, “Oh, you probably don’t know what that is, huh?” he laughed, “It’s called snow, it’s really cold if you touch it,” 

Techno hummed and looked back out the window, he had never seen snow before, he thought it was interesting. They spent the rest of the night just talking about different things, Techno learned more about where they were. They were somewhere called Antarctica, which was a piece of land that was frozen over. The whole place was covered in snow, which he thought was really interesting.

Phil and Techno eventually went to bed, when the sun was rising. They had a fun night, but they really needed sleep.

When they fell asleep, they had no dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heeeeyyy, i hope you enjoyed, if you did leave a kudos or a comment, they help with my motvation.
> 
> anyway, for the next few days i wont have access to my computer so i probably wont be able to write anything. the next few updates might be a bit slow so, just keep that in mind. ok bye


	8. rather sleep than stay awake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> People wonder and dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IM BAAAACCKK!!!
> 
> what is up boys???? im back with a new chapter after like.. 4 days
> 
> this one is shorter than usual but i hope you enjoy
> 
> (chapter title from "id rather sleep" by kero kero bonito)

Technoblade had woken up when the sun was in the middle of the sky. Not that he could see it, the snow coming down from the sky blocked his view. He couldn’t even see the ground from the window, it was just all white. He had never seen something like it before, he was still amazed by it.

His thoughts were interrupted by his door opening, he didn’t expect it so he had jumped up and made a grab for his sword which he realized was out of his reach. Phil had opened the door to deliver him breakfast, the blonde man said that he didn’t know he was up and invited him to his study when he was done, Techno had thanked him when he left. He looked down at the silver tray Phil had given him and flat, round, and fluffy… things on his plate. He had seen people eat them at restaurants in Hypixel but he didn’t know what they were called.

Techno picked up the fork and took an experimental bite out of the circular food, it was pretty good. He continued eating and listened to the voices tell him it was called a “pancake”. He decided he liked it.

\---

After he had eaten, he had grabbed his red cape and put it over his white shirt and black pants. He wanted to see Phil again so he went to go find his study. It took a few minutes for Technoblade to realized that he didn’t know what a study was.

The voices tried to help him navigate the maze of a house. There weren’t a lot of windows, due to the structure being inside a mountain, and the hallways were long and had a lot of twists and turns. He felt like he was going in circles.

He continued walking until he just decided to open one of the doors. The door he chose to open was big and wooden, he pushed it open and found that it was unlocked. When he stepped inside, the room was filled with books all the way up to the ceiling, which Techno couldn’t see because of the bookshelves. He continued to walk through the books, he scanned the backs of them to see what the titles were. Most words he recognized but some he didn’t know how to pronounce. If he had to guess, he would say they were history books, based on how most of them had titles like “ _The History of_ ”.

Techno stopped staring at the books when he heard distant mumbling, it wasn’t part of the noise in his brain, no, this was outside of it. It sounded like Phil, so he started to walk towards it. The library was still a maze, so it took him a few minutes to find where the voice was coming from but he eventually found it.

Phil was sitting at his desk hunched over a letter, he was mumbling to himself, although Techno couldn’t quite understand him. The piglin wanted to ask what he was doing but he stopped himself, it seemed like he was having a private moment. He was walking away to give him that moment before he knocked over a metal can and pieces of balled-up paper fell on the ground.

Phil stood up out of his chair and turned to look towards Techno, “Technoblade?”

The piglin froze, “uuh, hi.. Phil.” he waved

Phil laughed, “Hey mate,”

They stood there staring at each other for a few moments. Oh no, Techno was terrible at social interaction, what should he do? The chat was just saying ‘ _E_ ’ over and over again, some were just saying ‘ _Phil_ ,’ so they weren’t very helpful.

After a few more minutes, Phil laughed, “Oh, Techno, did you knock over the trash can?”

He looked down at the can, “um, maybe,”

Phil sighed fondly, “Well, let’s clean this up,” he leaned down to pick up the trash on the ground. Techno leaned down to help him, he caught the name of someone on the crumpled-up pieces of paper but couldn’t read it that well. Something with a ‘W’ he thinks.

“Sorry I knocked it over,” The piglin says

Phil picks the metal can up and places it back down, “It’s fine mate, it happens,”

When all of the pieces of trash are in the can, Phil brushes off the invisible dust from his hands and says, “Did you need me for something, mate?”

There is a pause before Techno responds, “I was just wondering where you were,”

The other man makes an understanding noise, “I guess I would too if I had just woken up,” he laughed, “so, are you liking it here so far?”

Techno nodded, “Yeah, I am,” he didn’t know what to say, so he just asked a question, “what were you reading?”

Phil’s eyes widened, “Oh, nothing important,” he starts pushing Techno towards the door while walking with him, “I saw you eyeing the snow falling, you’ve never seen that before, right?”

Technoblade didn’t know why Phil avoided the question, he came to the conclusion that it was just a touchy subject for him. Although he _did_ want to see the snow, he thought it looked pretty. The only thing he could equate it to was ash falling from the Basalt biome he saw from across the lava lake from the Bastion, he never really wanted to go there, he thought it looked weird. Phil and Techno walked down the stairs, Phil was chatting up a storm with Techno chiming in every once in a while. The chat is having a field day with Phil, he is glad they like him.

On an old man’s desk, a letter sits, unopened and alone.

\---

Technoblade’s hoof touches snow for the first time, it is cold.

As soon as he touches it, Techno jumps up and almost falls back into the door of the stronghold. Phil laughs so hard that he has to hold onto the wall of the hallway. Techno tries to defend himself against Phil’s laughter but soon falls victim to a laughing fit himself. They spend a few minutes laughing, with Techno sitting on the cold floor and Phil leaning on the wall.

Eventually, they stop laughing and stand up. Phil tells Techno that he probably should have warned him, Techno responds that he definitely should have. Technoblade takes a few more steps into the snow, it’s falling slowly from the sky, Phil tells him they’re called snowflakes. They melt when they land on his hands and face, but if he looks hard enough he can faintly see the outline of a star.

Technoblade and Phil spend a few more minutes outside before the cold starts to get to them. They were kicking up the snow and watching it fall to the ground, Techno held out his hands and watched them melt. Phil stuck out his tongue and caught a few, Techno did the same, they both laughed. When they went inside, they were both shivering and were had snow dusting their shoulders. Phil said it probably wasn’t a good idea that they walked into the snow without wearing proper clothing, Techno said he didn’t care.

The two went back up to the library and sat at the fire. Phil made something called “Hot Chocolate”, Techno had never had it. When Phil came back into the room it was steaming and, unsurprisingly, hot. It tasted nice, although when Techno had taken a sip he burned his tongue. Phil laughed at him, Techno said it wasn’t funny. They continued talking until the sun came down, Phil said that they shouldn’t repeat history and stay up too late. Phil and Techno drank the rest of the hot cocoa, they realized they were hungry so Phil invited Techno to watch him make dinner. The kitchen was on the first floor, and since they were on the second, so they had to walk back down the stairs.

“So, Techno, what do you want to eat,” Phil said as he moved a pan.

Techno hummed, “I don’t know, what do you have?”

The winged man walked over to the fridge, “Well, I have some steak, which is meat if you don’t know, I can heat up or just some watermelon. I should probably get some more supplies,” he muttered that last part.

Techno didn’t really want to eat meat right now, so he asks if he could try some of the watermelons. Phil grabbed them from the fridge and handed a slice to Technoblade, he took a bite and thought it was sweet but very watery. He didn’t really need to drink water, though sometimes it was nice to have. They both ate in mostly silence, they didn’t have much to talk about as they were both tired. Techno and Phil finished their dinner, if you could even call it dinner, and walked back up to their rooms.

Phil said goodnight to Techno at his door and they both went to their separate rooms and fell asleep. 

They have dreams about the shivering cold and the feeling of power.

\---

Wilbur is newly 17, driving away from a town with his ~~_girlfriend_~~ _fiance_ in his caravan.

He’s still riding on the adrenaline from when Sally told her father ( _to his face!!_ ) that she didn’t want to stay at their house anymore. He can still clearly see the anger on that man’s face. Wilbur is still smiling and laughing with Sally, they keep looking at each other. Will keeps looking at her and she tells him to keep his eyes on the road, everytime he laughs like it’s not a big deal.

He thinks she is wonderful.

He can’t stop thinking about how their life will be like after this. He thinks that traveling with her will be amazing, maybe they could even visit his father, he will love her. Maybe one day he’ll have children, but he doesn’t want to think about that just yet. He can hear her giggling next to him, he thinks it’s a beautiful sound. He remembers his father telling him to think about decisions like this, he said to think about it long and hard, he’s thought about it enough.

He’s only seventeen but he knows that this is something he wants.

They are about half an hour away from the town now, the van goes faster after Sally’s father had fixed it up. It’s definitely faster than a horse, useful too, but it gives him weird stares. He does not care. The sun is setting, soon it’ll be night time and the mobs and monsters will start coming out. He thinks that they should keep going for another half hour. He will have to set up someplace for Sally to sleep, they could share a bed but he should ask her first.

He sent a letter to his father a few days ago, telling him about his plan to propose to Sally and how they were going to run away together. He hasn’t received a reply back yet, but he thinks the bird would have only arrived last night. Hopefully, he will hear back soon. He wants to tell his father all about how they ran away and the look on Sally’s father’s face.

He’s starting to get inspiration for a song. Oh! He should write one with Sally, she has a beautiful singing voice. When they stop they’ll have to write down some ideas in his notepad. The sun has almost dipped below the horizon now, he should keep driving for a bit longer, he doesn’t want any of the townsfolk to come after them.

After driving a while, Wilbur finds a forest to park the van in to hide it away from the main road. The moon is in the middle of the sky, he had driven for much longer than he intended, Sally had fallen asleep. He parks the car and gets out of his seat. He didn’t want to wake up Sally so he just decided to take out the bed and carry her to it, he could sleep on the seat up front. He pulls the blanket onto the bed and drapes it over Sally, he hopes she has a good night’s rest. He brushes his hand through her red hair before walking back to the front and sitting down. He stares at the night sky for a few minutes, waiting for sleep. He wonders if his father got his letter, if he didn’t he’ll probably send a letter asking how Wilbur is doing.

When Wilbur falls asleep, he dreams of red hair and war.

\---

A demon lays in bed and wonders about a son he left behind.

He is awake, the light from his eyes is slightly lighting up the wall he is looking at. Behind him, at his back, is a man who he loves very much. He is lost in his thoughts for a moment, he thinks someone is missing before a hand wraps around his waist, and he thinks he has all he needs.

\---

Somewhere, far away, a half-demon sleeps in a cold, dark alleyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope you enjoyed that! this chapter was a nice way to wind down. im planning on next chapter being similar to this one, although it is possible that it might change into something else.
> 
> uuummmm subscribe to my youtube:
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDhhI1A8pTV0__gXhQzsE-Q?view_as=subscriber
> 
> ok bye


	9. im worried ‘bout the future, and fuckin’ with the past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reading is a nice skill to have, especially if you are a pig.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me, showing up to ao3 4 days late with a new chapter: heeeyy,,,,, hey,,,,, how yall doin...?
> 
> the middle of this chapter im not too proud of but i hope you still enjoy it. also, i have some news about future updates in the end notes.
> 
> (chapter title is from "the future" by mystery skulls)

The next few days were calm.

Technoblade had been reading a lot of books in Phil’s library when Phil was busy writing letters or reading himself. Phil had told him he was researching a certain phrase he had heard and had no luck so far. He asked him what it was and Phil told him that a few months ago, before Minecraft Monday, he had been in Hypixel when people had rushed by him chanting the phrase, “Blood for the Blood God”. Techno said that he did hear it, but didn’t know what it was from.

“Really? Where have you heard it?” Phil asked while looking through a bookshelf

Technoblade didn’t know if he could tell Phil about the voices, he did trust him, he continued arguing with himself for a few moments before telling him.

Phil looked worried, “Techno, you don-”

“I hear voices, Phil”

The blonde man looked at him for a moment, contemplating, “Oh, do you know why?”

The piglin sighed, “No, I don’t. They just started one day and started to say that phrase,”

Phil hummed, “Well,” he exhaled and put his hand on Techno shoulder, “you’re still the same guy I met a few days ago, I don’t think anything could change that,”

Techno laughed a little, “Thanks Phil,”

“No problem mate,” he turned his attention back to the bookshelf, “So, do you have any idea where they picked it up?”

“No clue,”

“Oh, well that’s helpful,” Phil said sarcastically

The piglin laughed.

\---

Techno was struggling to read a book. He had gotten good at reading English, it was just that the words seemed blurry. He didn’t know why. Was something wrong with his eyes? It only happened when he tried to read, or when something was close to his face. He was reading a book on Greek Mythology; it turned out this stuff was really fascinating but reading it was turning out to be a chore.

He was reading a book at Phil’s desk, he said he could use it if he wanted to, with his red cape draped over the chair. Phil had come up behind him and grabbed his attention.

“Hey, mate,”

Techno turned around to greet him, “Hullo,” he gave a small wave

Phil raised an eyebrow, “You having trouble there?”

Techno looked down at the book, “eeh, a little,”

Phil leaned over the desk to get a better look at the book, “What are you having trouble with, mate?”

Since Techno was sitting down he had to look up to see Phil, “The words are all blurry and I don’t know why,”

The winged man thought for a moment before laughing quietly, “Techno, you probably need glasses,”

Technoblade sat at the table in silence. He didn’t know what glasses were, he had never heard of them, “What are glasses...?”

“Glasses help people see better,” Phil explained, “I’m guessing you probably need reading glasses,” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a case, “here, you can use mine for now,” he handed Techno the glasses, Techno took them carefully and put them on, when he looked down at the book he could see way better.

“How does it look?” Phil asked while looking at the book Techno was reading.

Techno started to read a sentence, it looked better and he could make out the words. “It looks better, thank you, Phil,” he said.

“What book are you reading there?” the blonde man pointed to it.

The piglin looked at the book, “It’s about Greek Mythology, I find it interesting,” Techno was suddenly reminded of Phil’s quest to find out where the “Blood God” phrase came from. He should ask.

“Hey, Phil,”

Phil hummed, “Yes?”

Techno pushed the chair back and stood up, he took the glasses off and handed them back to Phil, “How is that research into the Blood God going?”

The winged man sighed as he put the glasses back into the case. “Not very well,” He raised his arms up, ”I’ve scoured this whole library and still there is nothing!” He crossed his arms, “I could go looking in Hypixel’s library, although it is a long way there,” he trailed off.

At the mention of Hypixel, Techno is reminded of Skeppy for some reason. He hopes he’s doing well.

\---

Meanwhile, Skeppy and Badboyhalo are currently going through a divorce.

\---

Phil had mentioned the idea of traveling to Hypixel to use their library. Now, Techno was all for new books to read, except, he does not want to travel across the lava lake. He was very against the idea of traveling there until Phil and Techno stopped their argument to remember that they had left Techno’s horse in the Overworld. 

Alone.

For almost three days.

That certainly was _not_ good.

\---

Philza Minecraft and Technblade ran through the Nether to get to the other portal on the other side of a giant lava lake.

“WHY THE HELL HAVEN’T YOU INVESTED IN A BRIDGE YET????” yelled a very frustrated pig.

“I’M WORKING ON IT!” a birdman yelled back.

The pair reached the end of Netherrack overlooking the lava. They were panting while trying to think of a way to get a horse, that Phil definitely couldn’t carry, over a lake of lava.

The piglin stood up straight, “How are we going to get the horse over the lava?”

Phil was still catching his breath, “I…” he sucked in a breath, “have no _fucking_ idea”

Technoblade and Philza Minecraft try and fail to put their heads together to find a solution. 

Eventually, they come up with a very, very bad plan.

\---

Phil and Techno’s plan was simple, but also very hard to do.

All they needed to do, was go _around_ the lava lake. A big brain plan indeed. Why they decided to do it this way is beyond comprehension but they tried anyway. So here is how it went.

Phil flew across the lake to grab the horse from the other side, Techno, on the other hand, would go around it and meet him at the portal. Technoblade decided to put his communicator to use and called Phil on it so that they could stay in touch. Apparently, they worked across dimensions.

So Phil quickly flew across the gap, while Techno ran as fast as he could through the Nether wastes dodging the fire. Phil, thanks to his wings, got over the lake quickly, Techno on the other, not so much. It took him twice the time to run through the Nether and he didn’t really like to do it either. Thankfully, he was not running through a crimson forest, so he could just run past the zombie piglins without them attacking him.

The communicators were helpful, as they let each other know how close and how far each one was to their destination. Although, yelling at each other for being dumb was not very helpful.

“WHY DIDN’T I INVEST IN A BRIDGE???” yelled a flying man into a gray communicator.

“YOU TELL ME,” yelled a pig that was running through Hell.

They calmed down, eventually. Phil had found Rocket, who was completely fine, he still had a whole hay bale left and didn’t have any injuries. Techno told him that he was waiting on the other side of the portal, which Phil led Rocket through.

Techno met Phil on the other side of the portal after a few minutes. He was out of breath and hugged his horse. Rocket whined and shook his head around, Techno pat his neck and took the reigns from Phil.

They started walking back, Techno was still out of breath while walking, Phil said they could take a break if he needed to but Techno said no. The pair walked in comfortable silence, they were too tired to talk, they wanted to get home and rest. While walking Rocket had almost stepped into a fire but Techno quickly moved him away from it. The stunt had given them all a scare, thankfully no one was hurt.

Walking back the long way around to the other portal took a bit longer than Techno running across the landscape. It was about 30 minutes until they reached the portal. Phil and Technoblade pushed Rocket through the portal and they followed him shortly after. They were in the portal room of the stronghold, Rocket had already gone towards the door but couldn’t open it.

Techno asked Phil if he could lead to where the stables were, as it was very easy to get lost here and Techno hadn’t been there yet. Phil leads him there and shows him one of his horses, her name was Oreo. Luckily, the two horses got along well. Rocket was put in a room across from Oreo.

They walked back up to the library after feeding Rocket for a bit and making sure that he had no injuries. They made it back to the room and sat down at the fireplace, despite that only about 2 hours had passed they were very tired. They were sitting on the carpet and pillows in front of the fireplace, although it was not lit. After a few minutes of relaxing, they started talking. Phil was talking about how they should probably go to Hypixel’s library so that they could try and find a book detailing the “Blood God”. Techno chimed in that he wanted to play some Bedwars and maybe go traveling soon, Phil said that it was alright if he wanted to leave, but Techno said that he would stay with Phil. 

During chatting, Phil was reminded of a letter on his desk but he put it out of his mind.

\---

It’s been a while since Wilbur had heard from his father.

Usually, he would send a letter, and then about 2 days later, he would get a response. Although, Phil could just be busy, except he never remembered the Arctic being very… busy. His fifteen years there were spent in tranquility, mostly. Sometimes, a door would burst open from the wind pushing on it too hard, or a stray piglin would wander through the Nether portal, maybe, if the circumstances allowed it, it would get too cold for either of them to stay in the stronghold and they would spend a few moments in the Nether to get warm. Those sounded like they were crazy enough but Wilbur could count on one hand how many times those occurrences happened. Phil was probably just busy.

He still had Sally though, and that was all he really needed, right?

\---

About a month after Technoblade had first arrived in the arctic, Philza Minecraft built a bridge in the Nether.

The bridge was made out of stone bricks and slabs, it crossed the entirety of the lava lake. Phil had suggested that they put soul torches or lanterns on it, to keep away zombie piglins, Techno denied that request.

Phil and Techno had also been building a base around the Nether portal. It was going slowly, Phil’s idea for it was for the outside to be completely dark, like the void, as to keep people who traveled that far away from the stronghold. Techno thought it was a good idea until he saw the materials. It could take months, maybe even years, to complete it with just them. They had built a small covering of the portal with cobblestone as a temporary measure.

The bridge took two weeks to build and gather materials. Phil taught Techno how to smelt cobblestone into stone and make it into stone bricks since he had never learned how to do so in the Nether. He had also learned how to make smooth stone.

Since they had finally finished the bridge, they decided to actually use it to travel to Hypixel. They would take Oreo and Rocket across the bridge and travel to Hypixel which would take about a day or two. They packed their bags and headed off. Thankfully, nothing went wrong in the Nether and they had no problem crossing the bridge, although Techno did hear a few far-off cries from a ghast. They made it to the portal safe and sound. The portal had another cobblestone covering that was also going to be temporary. Just to be safe, they check for injuries before going through.

On the other side of the portal, they made their way through the oak forest, the opposite way of the Savana. The journey would take about a day and they planned to take a few breaks in between. Techno and Phil planned when they got to Hypixel, they would rent a hotel room for a few days, Phil would go to the library and look for books with Techno on the first day. The next day would be spent Techno playing Bedwars, he said that Phil was welcomed to join but that was still was up for debate. They would leave the next day and head back to the stronghold.

On their way to Hypixel, they pass a small town in a plains biome. They took notice of it because of the way the guards tensed up when they passed by. They didn’t attack but it was something to take note of. Techno caught a glimpse inside and saw a lot of people looking, not sad, but slightly depressed. Something they could check out later he supposed.

Eventually, the day fell away, and the night rose. Phil and Techno set up camp in a small break in the trees. They put up a tent and placed down sleeping bags to lay on, along with a campfire, away from the tent of course. They fell asleep after telling each other random stories.

They made their way towards Hypixel again the next day. Continuing on, they reach the city at about noon. It was bustling with energy, people were walking along the streets, people with horses and donkeys riding by. Techno could see people in a field filming a movie of some sort, something about mobs singing? Weird.

Phil goes and fills out the forms for a hotel while Techno puts their horses away in a nearby stable. Luckily, there was a room open that had two beds. Phil paid for the room and looked to the lounging area and saw Techno sitting there, some time during Phil paying for the room Techno had walked down and splayed across the couch. Phil’s wings almost jumped out of his coat when he saw him there, he walked over and told the piglin to follow him. They made their way up the stairs towards the room Phil had gotten for them, the room was on the third floor. The blonde man unlocked the door and walked in with Techno following him. They looked around, it was small but homey. Next to the front door was the door to the bathroom, the beds were farther in and up against the right wall, there was a window that looked out onto the sea of people. They both put their bags on their respective beds, the sheets were pure white and very bright to Techno’s eyes.

The pair hadn’t eaten in a while, so they stopped by a restaurant that was semi-crowded. The food was good, Techno had chicken and Phil ate steak. They finished after about half an hour. They took a while to finish because they were too busy just talking. After they finished, Phil and Techno walked towards the library. Walking to the building took some time, as the number of people in the streets was large. When they did get to it, Techno thought it was bigger than Phil’s but not exactly huge, it was medium-sized. The building was quiet, the sound of crackling fire from the torches filled the space, although you could still hear the faint sounds of people bustling outside.

There were a few people at the tables, Phil and Techno found an unoccupied table and sat down. Techno stayed sitting down while Phil went to go look for books, as Techno didn’t know what to look for. The piglin was sitting down, leaning forward with his arms on the tale and his cape draped across the chair. His leg was bouncing up and down while he was waiting. Techno’s eyes moved towards the other people in the library, no one really caught his eye but he did see a flash of purple and blue in the corner of his eye. He was about to stand up to go after it when Phil returned and accidentally slamming the books on the table.

“Sorry, mate,” Phil apologized.

“It’s fine,” Techno waved his hand, “what did you get?”

Phi took the book on top of the small stack and handed it to Techno, “This one is about different Gods that people have worshipped over the years,” he pointed to the cover, which was just leather with the words “Gods & Religion” written on it, “It’s similar to the one we have at home but I thought it wouldn’t hurt to check,”

Techno opened the book, skimmed through the Table of Contents, and started to read the first chapter.

\---

Technoblade and Philza Minecraft had been reading for what felt like days but were really only a few hours. Techno had gone through about three books in the stack that Phil had brought over to the table, they were very long and did not discuss anything about the Blood-God. Some time, during reading, Techno had found himself wearing Phil’s glasses, they had let him see the words better which let him finish his last book faster than Phil. He was currently waiting for Phil to finish the last book, he could tell the man sitting across from him was getting agitated. He was leaning over the table with his head leaning on his hand, opposed to Techno who was leaning back in the chair with his arms behind his head, he also had his legs crossed ( _under the table of course_ ).

Phil suddenly slammed the book closed and leaned back on the chair, he ground the heels of his hands into his eyes and groaned, “Nothing, absolutely nothing,” he muttered.

Techno leaned forward onto the table, “Hey, Phil,” he reached a hand across to reach for the book Phil was reading, “we don’t have to keep looking.” The piglin looked out the windows of the library and say the sky was starting to turn orange, “We should probably call it a day anyway.”

The winged man sighed ad crossed his arms, “Yeah, we probably should,” he gripped the table to stand up, the chair underneath him making a loud sound in the quiet building, “it is getting quite late.”

“Should we put the books back where you found them?” Techno started stacking the books. Phil looked at them for a moment before saying that they probably should and offered to put the books ack himself. Techno would stay at the table until he got back, which he was fine with, it’s just he would’ve liked to help.

He had been sitting for a few minutes when he saw a familiar shade of purple rush past the table. He sat up straight and looked up the person speed-walking out of the library, they were wearing an eye-sore of a sweatshirt, he could see a swirling pattern on their back and had a book under their arm that was slipping. The book fell out of their arm but they kept walking, Techno stood up to grab it. He yelled out to the person to get their attention but was stopped by people in the library shushing him. He was about to just walk to the person and give them the book back but they had already walked out the door, he knew that he’d never be able to catch them in the number of people outside.

He thought that if they hadn’t noticed the book falling they probably didn’t want it. He took the book back to the table and sat down. The book was called “Gods & Monsters” but it wasn’t like the covers of the other books he had read, it was written on the book with ink in cursive although it was messy and had drops of the black liquid splattered on the front.

The author’s name was “ _Pandas_ ”. A strange name, but his name was Technoblade so he couldn’t judge. He opened the first page and saw that there was no table of contents, it was written more like a diary. Techno felt as if he shouldn’t be reading this, was this the purple person’s diary? He didn’t want to intrude until he looked back down at the page and saw the date.

_4 - 6 - 2000_

The date stood out to him for some reason, he couldn’t tell why. Maybe it was because of how the date was from almost a decade ago, or because the purple person looked very young. He really didn’t want to intrude, but something convinced him…

_‘read it‘_

_‘do it’_

_‘is this a good idea?’_

_‘E’_

_‘yes’_

_‘ya’_

_‘probably not’_

_‘maybe’_

_‘E’_

_‘E’_

_‘E’_

_‘most definitly not’_

_‘hopefully’_

_‘E’_

_‘no’_

_‘E’_

_‘technoread’_

_‘read the damn book’_

_‘READ IT’_

_‘READ’_

_‘please read’_

_‘E’_

He started to read the first page.

_I’ve finally started to write down a book! ~~Da~~ sorry, “Badboyhalo” had said that it was a good way to keep my thoughts in order. I’m taking his advice, he told me that he had written down his thoughts before and it had helped him in the past. We’ve only known each other for about 3 months now and I feel like I’ve really gotten to know him a lot and vice versa. He’s helped me with a lot of things n my life. My parents were giving me trouble for not moving out of the house but I had been trying to find a job to gather enough money to move out, Bbh (as I’ve been calling him) had offered to let me live in his apartment for a while until I get enough money to live by myself. He said that I didn't have to pay him any money, for now, I just help him with chores around the house. I’ve been living here for almost a week at this point, since I started living here he had given me a nickname. He said that his friends had always given new friends nicknames before he had moved to Hypixel. Anyway, my new nickname is Pandas. I don’t know why or how he thought of it, it could be something about how much I said I loved pandas when we first met, I’m glad he remembered. Oh, this is getting too long. I don’t want to take up too much space with this so um bye, I guess?_

_~~\- Vanessa~~ _

_~~should I sign out with my new nickname?~~ _

_\- Pandas_

Well, that was strange.

He felt bad for reading the page, as it was obviously very personal. But he couldn’t help but feel like the purple person wanted Techno to read it. It had fallen out under their arm so perfectly, and the fact that they hadn’t come back to get it was another factor influencing his decision. He closed the book to the dismay of the chat but he didn’t want to read anymore. When Phil gets back he will tell him about the strange book. He stood up from the chair and put on his red cape again and pushed in both his and Phil’s chairs. He tucked the book under his arm, it was hidden by his cape, making sure that it was secure enough so it wouldn’t fall out.

Eventually, Phil did come back from returning the books. Techno didn’t bring up the book yet, he thought it would be better to do it in the safety of their hotel room. Phil ranted to him about how they still couldn’t find anything on what the voices said. Techno said that it was fine and that they could find out more tomorrow. The blonde man had remarked that they probably never would find anything and that their luck was horrible. Techno disagreed.

Technoblade had a feeling that their luck was about to change.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me, writing in the dark at 2 am: mmmmmm,,,,,,, cromsin forest,,,,,
> 
> hi! i hope you enjoyed that. ummm ok so news time
> 
> so the next few updates might be a bit slow, im just being a little bit busy, and also because ive been playing minecraft a lot more now. uuuuhhhh also in this fic im not going to write any canon events (stuff like the revolution, schlatt, wilbur dying), those will be handled like….. later i guess. so this will end when techno gets invited to join the dream smp, which will be a little while later.
> 
> ALSO ALSO, “Pandas” is sapnaps mother. i know it is kinda sus to add an oc x canon (especially if it's real people technically) but she doesnt show up in the story at all, also i wont tag it.
> 
> if you did enjoy this, leave a kudos or a comment, they help with my motivation. uuummm ok bye.


	10. call me a fighter, call me a lover, you’ll get older

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A pig fights, a man in a sweater and a beanie loves, and a birdman reads like the old man he is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yooo!!!! we got some skeppy lore in this bitch fellas (maybe some bbh lore as well)
> 
> ok ok ok anyway, i hope you enjoy
> 
> (chapter title is from "fighter" by jack stauber. that is a maybe because that man speaks in cursive at every opportunity)

Technoblade was having a nice dream. He was in a frozen biome talking to a tall figure, they had a tail and black and white horns. He didn’t know their name but they seemed nice. They were taller than Techno but were crouching in on themselves to make them look smaller. He couldn’t tell what they were saying, something about… an egg, or voices? He caught those words.

Technoblade was having a nice dream. That’s why when he was woken up by a loud _SLAM_ of a door, he was not happy.

The piglin groaned and sat up in bed, his eyes were still closed with sleep. He yawned and rubbed the sleep away from his eyes, which did not help, as he was still tired, and got out of bed. Last night he had to sleep on his back because his small tusks kept getting caught on the fabric, it was still comfortable but he wished he could’ve moved around a bit more. He rubbed his eyes once again and opened them to see Phil holding two trays of food.

“Hey, mate,” he said quietly, “sorry I woke you up, heh.”

Techno made a snorting sound like a pig and flopped backward onto the bed. Phil laughed and set down one of the trays onto the small dresser that was next to the bed. Techno opened his eyes to look at the tray, it had pancakes on it with butter and syrup. Techno sat up and started eating, Phil sat down on his own bed across from Techno and ate as well.

They ate their breakfast in silence, just wanting to eat. Techno’s pancakes were good but he still thought that Phil’s were better. He still needed to bring up the book he had found yesterday, maybe they could return it to that purple fellow. Last night, after Phil went to bed, he had opened the book and looked through it. He didn’t read anything, he only looked at the dates. The dates ended in the year 2005, though there were a few extra pages that didn’t have a date, those were written in more… erratic ways. Hopefully, Phil won’t judge him too much for taking the book.

“Techno?” A voice broke his thoughts.

He jumped back to reality, “uh, yeah?”

Phil had a concerned expression on his face, “You alright? You spaced out there for a minute.”

“Yeah, I’m...” Techno tapped his fork against the plate, “I’m fine. Just thinking about something I found yesterday.”

The blonde man’s eyes widened, “You found something? Was it something to do with the Blood-God?”

Techno rubbed his neck, “I don’t think so,” he took a final bite of his pancake, “someone dropped a book and I picked it up.” the piglin put his plate on the small dresser next to the bed.

“You just… picked it up..?” Phil asked, confused.

“Well...” Techno fidgeted with the sheets of the bed, “I was going to give it back to them but then they… just never showed up..?”

Phil hummed, “Can I see the book?”

“Uh, yeah,” Techno stood up, “let me get it for you.” He walked over to his bag that was leaning against the wall and opened it. Inside was the strange book from yesterday, the ink chipped a bit but he could still read it. He grabbed it and walked back to Phil and handed it to him.

“This is it.” Techno said while sitting down on the bed, “um, it was dropped by someone in purple, I couldn’t get their attention so I waited until they came back, until you showed up.”

Phil hummed again and opened a page, he read a few sentences before looking up at the piglin in front of him, “Techno, this is written like it’s a diary, did you take someone’s diary?” Phil didn’t sound angry, but he did sound annoyed.

“Yeah, but look at the date,” Techno pointed at the page, “It’s from a decade ago.”

Phil looked back down at the open page in his hands, he looked back up at Techno again, “Did the person who dropped it look young?”

Techno shook his head, “Yeah, but I didn’t get a good look at them.” the piglin scratched his chin in thought, he remembers the cover and what the title was, “Phil,” the man looked up at him from where he was skimming through the book, “look at the cover, it’s weird.”

Phil closed the book and looked at the cover, his eyes scanned the name, “Gods & Monsters”, it was strange for something that was like a diary to have a name. He looked up to Techno once again, “It… _is_ weird.” He placed the book in his lap, “Why’d you point it out?”

“I just thought,” Techno fidgeted again, “that since we’re looking for the “Blood _God_ , something that has God in its title might help.”

Phil raised an eyebrow, “You want to read through it?”

Techno looked down, “Well… _> yeah_, but” he was interrupted by Phil plopping down the book in his lap. The piglin grabbed it before it slipped to the ground. He looked up at Phil who was now standing up. Phil was smiling fondly, “I won’t stop you from reading it,” he walked over to the wall that their bags were leaning on and picked his up, “but I won’t help you,” he put the strap of the bag over his shoulder, “besides, didn’t you say that you wanted to play Bedwars today?”

Technoblade looked at Philza with a deadpan expression, the other man just laughed.

\---

Technoblade had been playing in Bedwars for a few hours now. It was fun, to win a fight and see the person fall into the portal that was waiting under the arena. The voices seemed to be growing louder by the minute, every time he pushed someone off the island he would get put into a haze of loud voices screaming for the Blood God and for him to win more.

He had been on his 10th or 11th game when he had seen a familiar shade of blue rush towards him. Techno was surprised for a moment, at that moment, the figure had tried pushing Techno off the island but he retaliated.

“Skeppy?” the pig said.

“Hey, Techno,” the man with a box on his head replied.

The piglin quickly gained the upper hand and pushed the diamond box man off the island. He heard him scream profanities before the distant ‘vwoop’ of the portal sounded. It turns out, Skeppy was the last player. So when he went through the portal, Technoblade had won the game.

He and the voices yelled in victory.

\---

Technoblade is walking out of the exit portal when he hears his name being called.

“Yo, Techno!”

He’s in the lobby, so turning around and finding the person who called his name is a little tricky. Thankfully, the person calls out to him again and he can see Skeppy waving and walking towards him. He wants to wave back but a part of him is worried that Skeppy isn’t actually waving at him, so he waits until the man is standing next to him.

“Hullo”

“Hey, man,” Skeppy stuffs his hands into his pockets, “congrats on winning that game,”

Technoblade is horrible at social interaction, “uuuh, thanks.” he was really bad at this.

“Is this your last game or are you done for today?” his hands moved in his pockets, “cuz I was thinking we could play a game.”

The piglin thought for a moment, he could play another game, although he was getting tired and hungry. Maybe it was good to take a break, or just stop altogether. Besides, it had been a few hours since he and Phil had parted ways, he should go see him.

“Um…” Techno said after a minute, “I was thinking of maybe getting something to eat.”

Skeppy made a noise of contemplation, “That’s fine, we can go to a restaurant together. I know a place,” he walked in front of Techno a bit and made a ‘come here’ motion, “c’mon, it’ll be on me.”

Techno, after a moment, starts to follow him out the lobby. They make sure to not bump into people on the way out, which is more difficult than it sounds because there are a _lot_ of people in the lobby. They go through the exit portal and out to the streets of Hypixel, Techno almost loses Skeppy in the crowd as they walk but keeps on his tail.

Eventually, they make it to the restaurant. It’s family-owned and they sit right down at one of the tables near the window. Techno can see people on the streets moving, children with their parents and friends, horses and donkeys carrying people and supplies, most people are alone walking towards the building in the center that holds the Bedwars arena, or walking home. Some people are going in shops or other restaurants, a kid and his father walk in through the door of the building Techno and Skeppy are in, the parent looks fondly at his son as the boy spouts off about what he wants to eat. The piglin sees a cat mob in the back of the restaurant, he can tell by the bright blue eyes and the tail flicking while they eat a red velvet cake. Techno’s thoughts are interrupted by a waiter coming to their table, he hadn’t been looking at the menu but Skeppy tells her that they would just like some water and she goes back to the kitchen.

Techno picks up the menu on the table, he can read the words although most are blurry or he just hadn’t seen them before. He asks what Skeppy is getting, the man tells him he’ll probably get the steak. Techno does not want to eat meat right now, it reminds him too much of the Nether.

He just gets a salad. He’s hungry but _too_ hungry, he doesn’t want to eat too much in case Phil wants to eat. The waiter comes back and takes their orders and says she’ll be right back. Techno wants to speak but he’s too afraid to, Skeppy breaks the silence though, talking about his day until he saw Techno and decided to hang out with him. After a few minutes of Skeppy exaggerating his stories, the waiter comes back and hands them their food. Techno and Skeppy eat quietly for a bit, Techno doesn’t like the silence so he just listens to the noise of the restaurant. He can hear children faintly complaining about the food and their parents trying to soothe them, he also can hear someone yelling from outside. The voices inside his head, as if they are jealous, fill in the silence for him, although he does not want to listen to them. So he breaks the silence himself.

“Why’d you want to talk to me, Skeppy?”

Skeppy stops eating, Techno can’t see his mouth from here as it is still covered by that damn box ( _how does he see through that thing?_ ). He looks around in thought before answering.

“I just wanted to...” the man taps his fingers on the table, “make up for things, I guess.”

Techno rests his fork on his plate, “Your friend didn’t tell you to do this, did he?”

“No! No, he didn’t.” Skeppy puts his hands up in mock surrender, “I did this on my own.”

Technoblade stabs some lettuce and tomato on his plate, he chews it before Skeppy asks something.

“So, how’s living with the Angel of Death?”

Technoblade freezes. According to Phil, that information isn’t supposed to be known, or at least not commonly known. He remembers when Phil told him about it and how the Minecraft Monday tournament had figured it out, which is why he went to it in the first place. If they hadn’t called him that title in the letter, he would have thrown it away, he told Techno that he was very paranoid that something bad would happen. He remembers asking what would happen if that information ever got out.

( _”What would happen if that ever got out?”_

_”If it ever did,” he paused and lifted a finger, “I would be the one who leaked it.”_

_Technoblade remembers he felt fear in that moment._ )

If Skeppy knew that information, and he got into Minecraft Monday, but Minecraft Monday _also_ knew that information…

How did Skeppy get into the tournament again?

There is no way. Skeppy got into the event because he was popular in Hypixel… right? Besides, he didn’t seem like the type of person to do that. He was nice, he bought Techno clothes went he couldn’t afford it and wasn’t afraid of talking to him when most people were completely terrified of him. He was a good guy, he wouldn’t sell information like that. Then again, Techno didn’t know him that well, but… he just didn’t know.

“How… how do you know that?” Techno asked cautiously.

Skeppy tensed up, “Aw shit,” he fidgeted with the sleeve of his jacket, “forgot that wasn’t common information.”

Techno doubled down, “Seriously, how do you know that?”

“I-I just know, okay?” He could tell the man in front of him was getting nervous.

Techno thinks he should just ask. He wouldn’t do that right? Sell information? That seemed out of character for him, “You didn’t,” here he goes, “sell that to Minecraft Monday did you?”

The blue man almost flinches and sits up straight in his chair, “NO!” he yells, drawing the attention of most people in the small building, Skeppy waves an apology before lowering his voice, “no, I would never do that. I know what it’s like to be tracked down like that.”

...what?

Techno was confused. What did he mean by that? He decided to ask him.

“I…” Skeppy starts, “shit. I am on a roll today, aren’t I? He laughs awkwardly, “I just keep spitting out sensitive information left and right.”

The pig sitting at the table eating a salad is still confused. “Tracked down”? What???

Skeppy sighs, “If you don’t mind,” he waves over the waiter and lowers his voice to a whisper while leaning towards Techno, “I’d rather not have this conversation here.”

He tells the waiter to bring them the bill and two boxes for their food. Techno just sits there a bit surprised. Skeppy asks him if he wants to keep talking about it in his apartment, Techno nods. Skeppy pays for their meal and gives a tip to the waiter, he picks up the boxes with their food and hands Technos his.

Techno wanted to go and check on Phil after this, but he thinks getting to the bottom of this is more important.

\---

When Technoblade steps into Skeppy’s apartment, the first thing he notices that using the word “apartment” to describe it does not work very well.

It’s in a giant building, and the whole apartment ( _house, really_ ) has two floors. On floor has rooms for Skeppy and his roommate with a bathroom a little bit away from the bedrooms, the second has a living room and a kitchen, it also has another bathroom. The apartment that he had when he was still living in Hypixel was small and had a lot of problems.

The second thing that he notices is that the entire thing smells faintly like burning souls, a part of him wants to run, but he does not listen. Skeppy also smelled like this when he first met him, although he had gotten used to it over time, spending almost a month in the Arctic probably got him _un_ used to it.

Skeppy tells him to take a seat on the couch while he put the food in the kitchen, he takes Techno’s box and carries it away. Techno sits on the couch after taking off his cape and setting it next to him. Skeppy eventually comes back with two glasses of water and sets them down on coasters, as to not let the water ruin the wood of the small table.

He sits down next to Techno and rubs his arm awkwardly as if he doesn’t know what to say. So Techno takes it upon himself to break the silence first.

“So…” Techno says, “what did you want to talk about?”

Skeppy sighs, “Um, yeah… I” he pauses, “what I said earlier about… knowing what it’s like to be tracked down like that…” he pauses once again, he really doesn’t know what to say, Techno thinks, that’s a first.

Techno looks at him, he can’t tell what his facial expression is but the way the box looks down makes it look sad, even if it had a permanent smile painted on to it.

Skeppy interrupts him by screaming, which startles Techno, “AHHHHH! I DON’T KNOW HOW TO DO THIS!!!” he movies his hands in a shaking movement before calming down and sighing.

They sit in silence for a moment before Techno decides to speak again, “Um, what are you trying to do?”

“I’m trying to find the right words,” Skeppy answers, “hmm,” he goes to scratch his chin but the diamond box clocks his reach, the blue man snaps his fingers as he gets an idea. He stands up quickly, almost spilling his glass of water, and takes off the diamond box with the painted-on smile.

It takes Techno a second to realize what he is looking at. He’s looking up at the man standing in front of him, who, in the few months that Techno’s known him, took his box off. Skeppy’s face is littered with small diamond specks that look like freckles growing on his skin, his gloved hands were fidgeting with the box, he eventually placed it on the table with a loud ‘tink’.

“You…” Techno is still kinda processing the situation, “uh, have diamonds on your face.”

“Yeah,” Skeppy says in a deadpan tone and sits back down on the couch again, “I just wanted to so show you why I wouldn’t sell out your friend.”

Techno hums and nods, “Yes. I totally see where you’re going with this. Yep. 100 percent.”

The man sighs and Techno can actually see him glare at him, “Before I moved to Hypixel, I was hunted down because of my ability to grow diamonds, so people wanted that or something,” Skeppy explains, “I had to get protection, someone like a bodyguard,” that sounded interesting, is that why he smelled like he rolled in soul sand? “I had to leave my entire life behind, then I ended up here.” the diamond man runs his fingers over the small jewels on his face.

The piglin thinks for a minute, “Is the bodyguard thing why you smell like burnt souls?”

Skeppy groans, “You would know, wouldn’t you?”

Techno laughs, so hard that he almost falls off the couch. Skeppy laughs with him, Techno can see his expression this time, it was nice to finally see the face of his friend. Techno asked, just for clarification, if the demon he made a deal with was the one that he had seen Skeppy partner with during Minecraft Monday, he answered yes. His name was Bad, or at least that’s what Skeppy called him, and he was very sweet.

He asked why he even made a deal in the first place, Skeppy responded saying that he didn’t trust any human to not want his diamonds, so he opted for someone who at least couldn’t take that. They talked some more about random things, Bedwars, Skeppy’s small events he holds in town, demons. Eventually, Skeppy asked how he got to the Overworld from the Nether. Techno says he grew up in a Bastion over-looking a lava lake with a basalt biome across it in the distance, he ran away because he didn’t want to conform to being a piglin brute, forced to stand watch over the building, he also had some encouragement. Skeppy asked who encouraged him, Techno hesitated a bit before speaking.

“Can you promise not to tell anybody about what I’m about to say?” He stressed.

Skeppy’s expression turned serious, “Yeah, of course, what is it?”

Again, Techno hesitates and messes with his sleeves, “I uh, I hear voices and,” he looks away, “they were the ones encouraging me to leave.”

Skeppy’s eyes widen, “That’s…” he trails off.

“Weird?” Techno finishes for him.

“Oh, yeah definitely,” Skeppy laughs, “but I mean, it doesn’t really change anything. You’re still the same Techno. Like, you’re not dangerous or anything, just… different I guess.”

Techno hums, “Thanks for saying I’m special in the bad way.”

The diamond man jumps out of his skin, “WHAT?! NO, NO! THAT’S NOT WHAT I MEANT!!!” Techno just laughs and almost falls off the couch _again_ , when this happens Skeppy just starts cursing Techno out bout how he was messing with him and his words.

The sun starts to set eventually, Techno notices through the window when he and Skeppy are just laughing at each other stupid jokes. Skeppy asks him if he wants to go home now since it’s starting to get dark, Techno says he should probably get going and stands up, Skeppy follows him. He grabs his cape and puts it on, he walks toward the door with Skeppy following behind and still talking to each other. Techno opens the door and is about to say goodbye when Skeppy interrupts him by asking if he wants to bring his salad with him. Phil is probably hungry by now, he thinks and says that he would like to have it.

Skeppy goes and grabs t from the fridge and hands it to Techno. The box is slightly cold, which is a nice feeling. Skeppy and he say their goodbyes, it’s a bit awkward but they make it work. 

Techno leaves Skeppy’s apartment with a smile on his face.

\---

Wilbur stares at the sunset, his hair that isn’t tucked under his beanie blowing in the breeze. Sally was in the van, he doesn’t know what she’s doing but he doesn’t care right now, his mind is focused on the sun. The horizon looks like it was lit ablaze by Prime itself, like a million TNT was set off and only the fire from the blast was left. He should get his guitar out and write a song about it, but he doesn’t feel like it.

He can hear the van door open behind him and footsteps approaching, he knows who is behind him. The person walks up right up behind him and covers his eyes, blocking his view of the sun. The person laughs and says, “Guess who~” in a flirty tone, Wilbur just laughs and breaks out of her hold. He turns around and lifts her into a hug, she tells him off for ruining her fun, he just keeps laughing.

He doesn’t think about writing a letter to his father.

\---

Philza Minecraft is currently sitting at a table in the corner of a library, having no luck with finding any information on the Blood God.

He is frustrated and annoyed. Why aren’t any books about this? His table is covered in books and papers. He had a lot of papers but almost all of them were blank, he had one that had about 3 bullet points on it. This is what they said:

\- gods??? deity, a greater power?  
\- voices grow when tech wins a battle. they thrive on violence(?)  
\- started when tech was growing up in the nether

And that’s all he has.

Phil had almost no idea what to look for. He’s read most books in the library, some he had in his _own_ library back at home. The closest thing he has to connect something is that the voices Techno hears could be compared to prayers that people give to Gods but, according to Techno, the voices don’t sound like prayers, they just sound like voices in a crowd.

He reads the last page of a book that he has already read again and again. If there is any chance that he missed something, he needs that chance to be zero. He finishes the last sentence and flops back against his chair, running his hand through his blonde hair. He pushes a bit too hard against the chair and hurts his wing that is hiding under his coat a bit. He flinches and quickly sits up straight, a feather falls slowly to the floor, he quickly grabs it. He looks up around the room and sees no one looking, which is good, he can’t have people seeing that.

The blonde man looks over the table and the mess that it’s in. He should probably get it clean up, he thinks. He stands up and stretches a bit, making sure to keep his wings under his coat and away from prying eyes, and starts organizing the books to take back to their proper shelves.

He’s bringing the last stack back to its shelf when he is suddenly reminded of the unopened letter on his desk at home. Why his brain decided to bring it up now, he had no idea, but a feeling of guilt washes over him almost making him stumble. He doesn’t want to think about that now, he’s been putting it off for so long now it doesn’t seem right to do it at all. He takes one of the books off of the small stack and onto the shelf, he keeps trying to push the thought away but it keeps coming back. 

He’s distracted so he doesn’t notice when the last book falls out of his hand onto his foot. He almost yelled out a curse before remembering that he is in a library and slapping a hand over his mouth. His foot throbs in pain, but he just holds his hand tighter against his mouth and closes his eyes. Eventually, he calms down and walks back to the table, his empty note papers are still thrown around the table so he picks them up and puts them into one stack.

As he sits down he is reminded that he still needs to write to his son. He really meant to, he was just busy with the tournament and Techno and now researching this new thing he finds really fascinating. He should write to him soon, he doesn’t want to write to Will right away, in case something happens between now and when he and Techno get home. He will write to him, he will make sure of that. But before he gets started on that, he looks over his notes one more time. He reads through them reasonably quickly, there are only three small ones, to be frank, his eyes stop at reading the last one. He doesn’t know why it only stood out to him now, but he has an idea. The voices started in the Nether, maybe there is some connection there.

He’ll have to look if the Hypixel library had any books on the Nether.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> holy shit man i did not expect a lot of people to like this. i expected to get like 500 hits or something not, like, 2000.
> 
> anyway, i hope you enjoyed this chapter, if you did leave a kudos or a comment they help with my motivation.
> 
> umm ok bye
> 
> WAIT LEMME PLUG MY CHANNEL:
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDhhI1A8pTV0__gXhQzsE-Q?view_as=subscriber
> 
> ok bye for real


	11. brave as a noun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a few days, Technoblade and Philza leave Hypixel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello hello? uuh i just wanted to say THANK YOU for 200 kudos??? y'all are really starving for techno content, huh? ok ok before the chapter starts i just gotta say that today is my 3rd grade teachers birthday. i have NO idea why i remember that but its just stuck in my brain i guess, its been like half a decade why do i remember that.
> 
> OK OK CHAPTER TIME!! im not too happy with this one but whatever, ummm ok hope you enjoy
> 
> (chapter title is from "brave as a noun" by ajj

Technoblade woke up before Philza on the third day of staying in Hypixel.

He doesn’t actually know where Phil gets the breakfast from, he assumes it’s from downstairs. Although, even if the food is downstairs, he doesn’t really want to risk talking to people. He sits up in bed and looks over at Phil, he is facing away from Techno, his blonde hair is messy and splayed against the pillow, his jacket is on the coat rack near the door, and his wings are spread out and leaning over the edge of the bed. 

Techno’s debating whether or not he should wake him up, or give him a few more minutes. He decides on the latter, he wants to look through that book-diary-thing that he found. He gets out of bed as quietly as he can and walks over to his bag to grab the book. He sits back down and the bed creaks a bit, he freezes, Phil stirs a bit but does not wake up. Techno exhales and lays down under the covers.

The book still looks the same as it did yesterday, he doesn’t know why he expects it to change. The only thing that he can notice that is only slightly different is the book is faintly cold from the night chill. He opened to a new page and started reading.

He read through the first entry again, just to make sure he didn’t miss anything. He skimmed through the next few pages, apparently, ‘Pandas’ and their roommate had gotten in a small argument over their roommate’s job. The book never said what the job was exactly, but the two made up after about a day of avoiding each other.

Pandas had gotten a job at the library, they would organize books if people didn’t put them back in the right places. The fifth entry is where things started to actually get interesting.

_4 - 12 - 2000_

_It’s been a few days, heh! I just kinda forgot to write anything down. I’m glad nothing too great happened, although there was more news about the Nether travel ban. Travel through the Nether has been banned for almost 50 years now, but people are starting to oppose it._ _Yesterday, there was a protest in the streets. I didn’t join, because I sadly had work, bbh didn’t join either, saying he didn’t want to get in trouble with the guards. He watched from the balcony though, he said that someone got injured from an iron golem. Sometimes I wish that the government wasn’t so violent with its citizens, but what can you do?_

_In the library, they have a whole section about the Nether and its history. I’m bringing this up because there is a rumor going around that those books will be destroyed soon. I don’t want that to happen. History is very interesting, especially if that history is about somewhere new. I told bbh about this and he gave me the idea to maybe write down the history in this journal and maybe publish it one day. I thought that was a good idea, so starting tomorrow when I go on my lunch break I’m going to take as many notes as I can on the Nether._

_\- Pandas_

Techno guesses that’s why he and Phil couldn’t find any books on the Nether. But that didn’t explain why there was no Blood God unless it was connected to the other dimension. He should mention that to Phil when he wakes up. He looks at the man sleeping and thinks if he should wake him up, he decides against it.

This person mentioned that Hypixel was going to burn all of the books about the Nether and also that it was banned? Weird. Why would people do that? He flips to the next page to see if there is any more information, he finds another paragraph talking about it.

_4 - 13 - 2000_

_It is currently the night now. No new news about the Nether ban has turned up yet, but I expect it to happen in the next few days. I went to work early today and started organizing as many books as I could. My supervisor saw me working and said that I could take an extra-long lunch break, which was good because I wanted to get some work done and have lunch with bbh. We went to have lunch at this new restaurant in town, it’s family-owned and we sat near the window. I ate some salad while bbh had steak, we had a lot of fun just chatting. But eventually, I had to leave quickly to get back to the library. I actually gathered some notes today! It’s not as much I hoped but it is something!_

_Anyway, it is late and I should probably sleep. Goodnight!_

_\- Pandas_

Well, that’s not much help. He flips to the next page and sees that ‘Pandas’ wrote about their crush again. Even if they hadn’t realized it yet, it was so obvious. He skipped that page and went on to the next, it mentioned the riots and how the hell dimension had been banned for 50 years again, but what he found interesting was the last sentence, “ _On the next few pages, I’m going to put my notes in._ ”. He flipped to the next page quickly, almost ripping the paper in the process, and started reading.

_\- Nether travel is banned_  
_\- Demons (souls of the damned, bad people) live in the Nether, along with other species_  
_\- Piglins (these books do not describe them very well, I’m guessing they are pigs) are, apparently, not native to the Nether_  
_\- fortresses in the Nether are abandoned, unused by the travelers who built them_  
_\- they apparently worshipped some God? Blood, or maybe war? Fighting?? Very violent._

_That’s_ what interested him.

Finally, he found something. Which was good because Phil and Techno were due to leave their hotel today. Anyway, what he also noticed on the page were crudely drawn pictures of mobs from the Nether. The piglin one was semi-accurate, the only thing that was different was the clothing, hoglins were the same, although in the drawing they were slimmer than in real life. Other drawings included, blazes and wither skeletons that he couldn’t determine if they were accurate to the real things, he had never seen one before. The only reason he knows about them is because of the Elder’s warnings in the Bastion, which he does not like to think about.

Phil interrupts his thinking when he wakes up, he groans and sits up, stretching his arms and legs ( _along with his wings_ ). Techno grabs his communicator from the nightstand, the time reads 10:48, they have to check out in about two hours, they should start getting ready.

The winged man yawns and looks over at Techno. He waves and rubs at his eyes to get rid of the tiredness, it works for a few seconds.

“Hey Techno,” He yawns out.

Techno chuckles and says that they should get ready for the day, Phil agrees and stumbles out of bed towards to bathroom. Techno sighs and places the book on the nightstand, he’ll have to tell Phil about his findings after he wakes up.

\---

When Technoblade tells Phil that he found something about the Blood God, he most certainly does _not_ choke on his scrambled eggs.

__

__

And he definitely does _not_ demand that Techno hands him the book so that he could take a look for himself.

It’s the second time he’s held the book but the only time he read beyond the first page. On the 9th page, is a small collection of notes that the author had made. Techno said that he had read that the Nether was banned a decade ago, he asks Phil if it’s true. Phil remembers a travel ban on the Nether, vaguely. A decade ago, he was hold up in the stronghold taken care of a unruly six ~~_seven_~~ year old.

He tells Techno that yesterday he was going to investigate the Nether when he couldn’t find any books on the subject. Techno tells him that in the diary he is reading it explains that most, if not all of them, were burned or going to be burned. He was never really interested in the Nether so that may be why he doesn’t have any books in his library. Also, it might have to be due to the fact that most of the books that were there are from thousands of years ago, back when that Ancient Civilization built the End portals.

He reads a little farther down the page and finds this.

_There are some rituals to bring a person back to life? A book mentioned that the same author made another book about this, it also said its name but I couldn’t find it in the library. I asked my co-worker, who knows how to check the files if a book goes missing if that one was in this library. He said that there was one that disappeared with that description. Was it stolen? That can’t be good._

He knows the power to bring people back to life exists, although he only thought that zombies and skeletons are the only living undead, besides demons. Demons are naturally in the Nether, stuck in the hell dimension until they get their clawed hands on a soul. This would be very hard for them, since the knowledge of summoning demons, beasts who _live_ in the Nether, would be burned, along with the rest of the Nether books. So, unless something in the Nether gave them a soul or someone with a soul got caught, they had no way of leaving the burning world.

He reads over the passage again and shakes his head. That doesn’t matter right now, they have to get ready to leave. Phil and Techno have to sign out at 12, they should get packing.

\---

Everything is packed up and ready to go, Techno thinks as he puts on his red cape.

Last night, Phil had eaten Techno’s salad, so they didn’t really have any food left to eat. Phil proposed that they should buy something from the market. Phil volunteered to go and get it while Techno packed up the rest of their things since he is not great with social interaction.

Techno was currently waiting for Phil to come back from getting some food. He didn’t really know what else to do, so he looked through the strange book again. He looked over the drawings again, he studied the mobs that he hadn’t seen before. The notes themselves are on the left page, while some of the drawings are on the right. Some spill over to the next page, with one of them being a Magma cube, he had also never really seen one up close.

The wither skeleton was creepy. While traveling through the Overworld for the first time he had fought and seen a lot of skeletons, none looked like that.

The blaze was weird. The drawing made it look like a weird collection of limbs and a head. He didn’t like it.

The ghast drawing was probably the most accurate. With the strange appendages and giant head, he remembers their haunting cries.

Techno stops looking at the book when he hears the door open and Phil walks through. He has a box of supplies under his arm. Techno gets up to help him and brings the box over to the bed. Techno asked what was inside the box, Phil said that there were some stacks of food and a flint and steel.

Phil says that they should probably get going and grab their horses. Techno agrees and helps Phil put the small box away in Phil’s bag, they had to rearrange some things to make room. The blonde man makes sure his wings are tucked away under his coat and slings his bag over his shoulder. Techno does the same and they walk out the door to give back their key and check out.

When they walk down the stairs they pass a few people on the way down. Phil waves to them to be polite. Phil makes his way to the front desk while Techno takes a seat on the couches. He doesn’t want to lay down because he feels like he will fall asleep again. He looks over at Phil who is still talking with the lady who is at the desk, this might take a bit. Techno opens his bag a pulls out the book again, he opens to a new page. He looks over the notes again and the drawings, nothing new. He flips through the next few pages, just more diary entries, nothing of substance there. The author apparently hadn’t put any more notes in, so most of the pages were just short paragraphs of their day. Just small anecdotes like how their roommate doesn’t like swearing or if they had a particularly rude customer.

He closes the book. He’s obviously not going to find anything right now. He puts it back in his bag and looks over his shoulder at Phil, he looks annoyed. He looks back in front of him and starts fidgeting with his cape and sleeves. Suddenly, he’s reminded of the small half-demon boy he met in the Nether, he hopes he is doing alright.

His thoughts are interrupted by Phil walking towards him and sitting down. Techno can see the wings on his back under his jacket getting reckless, he puts a hand on his shoulder to calm him down. He asks what’s wrong and that sets Phil off on a rant about how annoying hotels are. Phil keeps talking and Techno just tunes it out, he doesn’t really think of anything until a question Phil asks reaks him out of it.

“You know what I mean?”

Techno just responds with a very unconvincing ‘yes’ and Phil continues talking bout how hotels were better off not existing.

\---

Technoblade and Philza arrive at the stables a little bit after 12 o’clock. Again, Phil takes over the social interaction while Techno waits and brushes Rocket. Phil pays for the last 3 days they had to use the stable, the man running the service thanks him and tells him to leave.

Phil and Techno grab Oreo and Rocket and start walking towards the end of town. They pass multiple people in the streets, Techno spots some people standing near an alleyway entrance who look like they cause trouble, he swears they glared at him. He users Phil along,

They continue walking until they reach the gates. The journey back should take about the same time it took to get here, along as they don’t take unnecessary detours. Although, Techno is reminded of that town he saw on the way here. They continued walking through the oak forest, with Techno slightly ahead of Phil. Rocket was noticeably faster than Phil’s horse, he wondered if the horse could jump high. If they had a kid that would be a pretty strong horse, he thought.

Nothing really of note happened for a while. The most was a skeleton shooting at them from the shadow of a tree, but Phil quickly dealt with that. It felt like the day went by very quickly, the sun in the sky quickly dipping down toward the horizon. Phil said that they should probably find a good place to camp, Techno wanted to but he remembered the sight of a town a little bit from here. They kept going until they reached the gates of the town, Phil got off his horse to greet the guards. They seemed not very appreciative of them being there.

The two men guarding the gate said to leave or they would attack, two other guards on top of the walls knocked an arrow in their bows. Phil ran back to his horse and galloped away, Techno followed.

A few miles away, they stopped in a clearing. They were in private, so Techno could see Phil’s wings puff up from out of his jacket. Techno walked over to Phil to comfort him, asking what that was about.

“Well, they obviously don’t want visitors,” Phil said as he guided his wings back under his jacket.

Techno huffed, “yeah, I could see that.”

Phil took a deep breath while running a hand through his hair, “It looks like they have a very strict government,”

“I don’t like strict,” Techno thought back to when he was slightly younger, the Bastion had a strict ruling. He didn’t want that life and believed that other people should be able to make their own choices. Having a higher authority was alright but having one that is corrupt can lead to dangerous things. Maybe…

“We should start a revolution,” Techno said after a minute. Phil almost dropped his bag in shock, “WHAT??!” he yelled. Techno repeated what he said, “You know what I’m talking about, right?”

“Yes, yes, I know what you mean,” Phil responded, “It’s just, doing a revolution takes time,” an interesting comment, Techno asked if Phil had ever been in a revolution before.

“I…” he started, “yes I have, it was fun but...” he trailed off, Techno understood if he didn’t want to talk about it. “Well,” Techno replied, “I think, at least, we should break in”

Phil sighed, “Well, we can do that tomorrow night, it’s already late enough as it is,” Techno looked around and saw how dark it was getting, they should probably get the camp ready. A plus side of not sleeping in a town or city is the fact that Phil and Techno do not need to pay for sleeping in a bed. They set up a campfire and ate some steak next to the fire. When they finished, they went to sleep in their tent.

Tomorrow is revolution, or at least the start of one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope you enjoyed!!! give a kudos and/or comment if you did.
> 
> ummmmm ok bye
> 
> edit: 🦀TOMMY IS DEAD🦀


	12. a little town in an oak forest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Technoblade and Philza Minecraft cause problems on purpose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is so shit but idc. i had no other idea how to do this chapter so i just made it very fluffy and not very detailed. ummm oki hope you enjoy. this is really short btw.

Phil is laying in his tent, sleeping next to Techno, who is snoring, questioning why he even agreed to break into a town that has a lot of guards. He has fought the Ender-dragon and lived, he doesn’t know why he is so scared.

He should go to sleep now, they have to prepare in the morning and then wait for the night. Phil closes his eyes and dreams of the shivering cold.

\---

So it turns out that breaking into a heavily fortified town is easier said than done.

Currently, it was in the middle of the night, towards midnight if Phil was reading the sky right. ‘ _Oh, Prime, this is a bad idea’_ , Phil thought as he used most of his strength to lift a 6 ft tall piglin over a stone wall. They both landed on the other side, definitely not a soft landing but not a rough one either. Phil is catching his breath on the other side of the wall when Techno grabs his arms and they run into a hiding spot.

“Techno, what are you doing?!?!!” Phil whispered-yelled.

The piglin shushed him and pointed around the corner to where two guards were patrolling. Phil let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding when the guards passed by them. The only light in the town was the lanterns and torches hanging on the walls or from a house, so being in what was basically an alley-way made it slightly hard to see. Phil’s eyes could see in the dark better than most people, but he doesn’t know how well Techno can see right now.

“Techno,” Phil said trying to get his attention, in response Techno’s ear twitched, “do you even have a plan??”

Techno made a sound like a snort, “we cause problems on purpose,” he continued looking out onto the dark street where nobody way out, was there a curfew? Phil just stood there dumbfounded and Techno then ran across the street and hid behind another house. Phil stared at him from the other side. 

Techno’s head peeked over the corner, he started whisper yelling Phil’s name, “Phiiiillll! Phhhiiiiiiillllll!” he said.

Phil just rolled his eyes, he looked both ways to see if any guards were coming and when he saw none he ran towards his friend.

\---

So the town was kinda small, which was good because that meant that they couldn’t get lost very easily. The small city had four main roads, which all started at the center, that had a fountain with a statue of a man.

Anyway, so Techno and Phil were currently making their way down the road towards the mayor’s house while keeping hidden of course. The closer they got to the house, the more guards there were, which made it harder for them to sneak around. They weren’t causing any great harm, mostly just messing around and confusing the guards.

“What are we going to do when we get to the house?” Phil asks as they hide behind two barrels that are conveniently the same size as Phil and Techno.

Techno scratches his chin in thought, “We steal all their gold,”

Phil slaps a hand over his own mouth to muffle his laughter.

\---

Phil was on watch for guards as Techno climbed through the window of the mayor’s house. Phil’s wings were outside of his jacket, but he didn’t care right now. Sure, they made him sorta recognizable, especially to anyone who still worshipped the Angel of Death but it doesn’t matter right now.

“Psst,” Techno says as he makes it into the house, “Phil get up here!!” he whisper-yells.

Phil stifles a laugh and uses his wings to fly up to the window, he climbs through and sees a library. Well, more like a study. It is smaller than the one in Hypixel and the one at home. The book that is opened on the desk is about Respawn, he has the same book at home, so he doesn’t bother reading it.

“What’s that book about?” Techno points to the desk. Phil looks at the desk and back to Techno, “Just something dumb,” he says, and Techno laughs.

He maybe laughs a bit too loud because a few minutes later, a man in his pajamas slams open the door holding a half-melted candle with an angry expression on his face. He yells for his guards and the duo jumps out the window.

\---

So it turns out the small town had a bar, so they got kinda distracted. Now, Phil doesn’t usually drink, he used to but that was almost a century ago, and having Techno drink alcohol was definitely not a good idea. They stole a couple of bottles, not to drink, but to use on the guards.

So while Techno was grabbing another bottle to put in Phil’s arms while Phil was trying and failing to be quiet, guards burst in through the door. Techno and Phil stared at them and they stared back ( _well, more like glared_ ), they looked at Phil’s wings that weren’t covered by his jacket. Techno slowly raised his arm that had the beer bottle in it, smashed it on the ground, and yelled, “SCATTER!!!”

Phil and Techno went in different directions, while the guards chased after them. Phil abandoned the bottles of alcohol and climbed out an opened window, Techno just ran out the door past the guards. They both met up in the middle of the street and run down the street. The people chasing them are shooting arrows and yelling but they don’t have good aim because of course, they just don’t.

As Technoblade and Philza laugh, lights turn on in their houses, some windows even open to see what is going on. They see a pig and a birdman laughing the night away as they run from the police.

For the first time in about a century, Philza Minecraft feels true freedom.

\---

“This was a great idea, Phil!” Technoblade says as he runs away from the police.

“This is terrible!” Philza laughs as he throws a tomato at a cop.

\---

‘ _technoblade_ ’

‘ _WATCH OUT!!!_ ’

‘ _E_ ’

‘ _it’s fine, probably_ ’

‘ _get their asses techno!!_ ’

‘ _E_ ’

‘ _E_ ’

‘ _BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD_ ’

‘ _blood for the blood god_ ’

‘ _technoblade never dies!_ ’

‘ _TECHNOBLADE_ ’

‘ _blood_ ’

‘ _tomatos!!_ ’

‘ _red_ ’

‘ _E_ ’

‘ _E_ ’

‘ _E_ ’

‘ _E_ ’

‘ _E_ ’

‘ _E_ ’

\---

Eventually, after about 30 minutes, other people joined in on Phil and Techno’s fun. Some adults, mostly teenagers, picked up tomatoes and started to throw them. Phil would hand out some of the food to people and then join in. Nobody really noticed his wings, and if they did they didn’t mention them, which he was slightly glad but also surprised.

Techno was fighting with the guards, nothing deadly but enough to cause some problems. He distracted them while they got pelted by tomatoes, sometimes getting accidentally hit by them, but he didn’t seem to mind.

The amount of chaos going on around them allowed them to slip away. There were a lot of tomatoes around, on the ground, they stuck to Phil’s clothes, and Techno’s cape ( _although, you couldn’t really tell_ ). They walked through the streets that were covered in tomato juice and out the gate. Their red-stained clothes decorated the ground, if you looked at it for too long it could look like blood.

Luckily, nobody stopped them on their way to leave, so they quickly made their way to their campsite. Their horses tried to lick at their clothes to try and eat the red that was painted on them. Phil packed up their tent and made sure their campfire was put out all the way, even if he did that earlier. Techno tried to clean out the stains of his cape to no avail, it is not like it matter anyway, you couldn’t really see it.

The sun is coming up when Technobalde and Philza are riding their horses away from the fortified town.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh i hate this chapter so much but i didnt know how else to do it. anyway, next chapter i have a plan of their being a time skip. maybe 2 years, maybe less idk we'll see how it works out. the next chapter might take a bit to get btw.
> 
> uuuuummmm if you enjoyed give a kudos and/or comment, i appreciate it


	13. we'll rise by the sound of the bird songs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Empires rise and people fall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dude im fucking speed running these chapters, the next chapter will be out in a couple days. also, tomorrow is my birthday, uuuummmm ok i hope you enjoy.
> 
> (chapter title from come along by cosmo sheldrake)

_“Did you hear about that rumor?” a man says while sitting at a bar one day._

_A few heads around him perk up, eager for gossip, “What rumor?” a person says._

_The man takes a sip of his drink, “There’s a rumor going around that the Angel of Death is back,”_

_The bar goes silent for a moment, before resuming to its normal noise level._

_“Why’d they all go quiet for that?” a woman with an accent says._

_“What?” a person chimes in, “ain’t that guy dead?”_

_Again, another person chimes in, “I thought he was immortal or something,” they pause as they take a drink, “that’s how he defeated the Ender-dragon,”_

_“No, no,” a man shakes his head, “he died defeating it, that’s why he disappeared,”_

_“I thought people met him after he beat the dragon though…?”_

_The people break into arguments amongst themselves, filling the building with noise that will be tuned out by the other customers. The bartender gets an annoyed expression on her face, wishing she had a better life, her specialty was always more in baking anyway,_

_A masked thing man sits a bit farther away from the chaos. A part of him revels in it, another hates it. He wants it to continue but at the same time for it to stop. He has a loose grip on a small glass, he does not drink it, as to not disturb the mask on his face. Usually, if someone were to wear something bright green, they would be very noticeable. Although, when he walked through the door a few minutes ago, not a single head turned in his direction._

_His thoughts are broken when someone says something particularly dumb._

_“No, no no!” a drunk man says, “The Angel of Death is dead! Change my mind,”_

_The table’s noise level goes up, the man wearing the mask can see the woman at the bar getting more irritated. He is only about a table away, so, despite it them being very loud, the group hears him laugh. It is a small giggle, which turns into a small wheeze, the people next to him look in confusion, some are still arguing._

_“What’s so funny, green bean?” one of the men says._

_The green bean laughs, he hasn’t heard one like that before, “Nothing,” he says, “nothing at all.”_

_He gets up and leaves a handful of gold nuggets on the table, his full glass still sitting there. He needs to leave now, a feeling in the back of his mind tells him that it’s time to meet someone new._

_Dream hears the table laugh behind him as he walks out the door into the cold, dark night._

\---

“You know my birthday is coming up,” a man in a blue shirt says while hanging out with his friends. They’re in a forest, walking down a path that leads back to the village, the sun is shining through the leaves. The group is slightly spread out, with two of his friends that are a new couple walking slightly ahead of the rest of them. He can hear them talking about random things, their relationship, their parents, etc. Two of his friends, Colin and Kyle, are laughing on either side of him.

“Yeah, yeah,” Colin says, “in like two weeks,”

“What do you want to do for your birthday anyway?” Kyle says, fixing his hat.

George brings a hand to his chin in thought, his mind immediately wanders to the giant cliff the hangs over the village. He remembers when he was younger his friends dared him to climb it, he remembers looking up at it with his multi-colored eyes and crying.

“Do you guys remember that stupid dare you guys made when we were kids?” He asks.

They both think for a moment, before nodding.

“I think it’s about time I made good on that.”

\---

“Nick, you need to get ready!” a woman’s voice calls.

He hates it. He hates that name. His name is Sapnap, even if it is a weird one. The people here call him that because they deemed his name, “evil”. He doesn’t know why. He climbs out of the bed and walks to the bathroom. The people here have cut his claws, filed them down to be dull.  
His hair is short, the people here cut that too, he wishes it was longer so that he could hide his pointed ears, but they won’t let him. The people here say that only girls are supposed to have long hair, he doesn’t understand that.

They fitted him with new clothes, he doesn’t have the “rags”, as they called them, any more that were knitted by his father. He can barely remember his face now, he only remembers the light-blue of his eyes.

He has grown a lot in the past month, he is now taller than the other kids his age. He doesn’t really know why, maybe it has something to do with the Nether. The adults here tell him that he is a demon, an evil spirit that crawled from the depths of Hell unto Earth. He doesn’t think he is evil. He tries to be nice but nobody really wants to play with him, they all think he is weird.

Sapnap stops thinking a reaches for the toothbrush. He can see his sharp teeth when he opens his mouth. He remembers when he first arrived here and when one of the adults reached into his mouth and looked at his teeth, he bit that man that did that. They shoved him in a closet after he did that. He spits into the sink and rinses out his mouth with water. 

He looks back into the mirror. He can see more of the pitch-black fur growing on his neck again. He isn’t ready for them to shave it off again, he’ll have to wear a turtle neck today, even if they are uncomfortable. He’s glad that he has hidden his tail from them, or else they might cut that off too.

The woman calls for him again, so he runs out of the bathroom and grabs the turtle neck and some pants. He hides his tail in the baggy pants as one of the ‘caretakers’ walks into his room.

“Hello, Nick,” she says in a sickly sweet voice. He hates it. “Are you ready to get rid of those ugly horns?”

He shakes his head in a voiceless response, he doesn’t like to talk to them.

The woman’s eye twitches and she grabs her wrist tightly, “Hmm,” she hums, “I know you’re scared but it will be fine! Follow me,” she starts to move out of the room but waits for Sapnap to follow.

He really, really, doesn’t want to. His horns remind him of his father, he doesn’t want to lose them. He’s scared that if they get rid of them, he might fully forget his dad’s face.

_Maybe_ , he thinks as he and the woman walk down the hallway, _I can escape._

\---

_Dear Wilbur,_

_So much has happened in these past few months, I don’t know what to tell you. I met someone new a while back, he is a very interesting person. You know about souls right? Of course, you do, I’m your father. Anyway, I met a piglin, you know, with a soul, named Technoblade. He is very nice, I can’t wait for you to meet him._

_I also won the last week of Minecraft Monday with him, it was a lot of fun. But I don’t want to bog down this paper with that so I’ll skip telling you that._

_We went on a little journey about a week ago to Hypixel. We went because we were researching something (or someone?) called the Blood-God. I don’t think Techno would appreciate telling you why, but if you do happen to hear anything about it, please let me know._

_On the way back to the stronghold, Techno and I caused some chaos in a nearby town. I don’t know if news like that will spread, but if you do hear anything about it, that was me (and Techno)._

_He knows about the Angel of Death thing, so if you do come and visit you can mention it. Oh! I just remembered, Techno and I finally built a bridge over the lava lake in the Nether. I know you always hated flying over that thing when you were younger. I had to carry Techno over it, he didn’t like it either, mostly because I also most_ did _drop him._

_Anyway, I don’t want to take up too much of your time. I’m sure you’re busy traveling the world. You mentioned you’d come and visit, right? You can, of course, I would love it if you did._

_Your father,_  
_Philza Minecraft_

Wilbur ~~Minecraft~~ Soot leans on windowsill of a rented motel room. He holds the letter in his right hand, the paper starts to wrinkle as his grip tightens on it. He feels as if he is going to cry, he does not. His eyes water but he does not let the tears fall, this letter cannot be what makes him break.

The moon is full in the sky, illuminating the world with its light. Every so often, an animal will walk by the window in the distance, a squirrel, perhaps even a fox, he saw one with unhuman eyes when he and Sally walked into the building. He can see the van from here, the doors are closed and the headlights are off, he cannot see inside.

He runs a hand through his hair and sighs. His father, Phil, talked about how he had messed around in a town near Hypixel, Wilbur remembers how earlier today he heard some people talking about it.

“The Angel of Death is back,” someone said. “Really?” said another. He remembers being so angered that he had to take a walk out of town to calm down. He also remembers spotting a blonde-haired, blue-eyed kid looking at him in the crowd of people in the marketplace, he paid extra attention to his wallet as he walked by.

“Stupid old man,” he grumbled under his breath.

“Who’s stupid?” a pretty voice says behind him.

He turns around quickly, moving away from the window and hastily shoving the letter in his pocket. “Sally!” he says, “I didn’t wake you up, did I?”

“No,” she says as she walks toward him, her shirt is slightly ridden up so he can see the scales that adorn her hip, he looks away quickly, “the bird did,”

“Oh,” he says after a moment, “well we should get back to bed, heh” he rubs the back of his neck.

Sally looks over his shoulder at the window and then down to the letter in his pocket, she raises an eyebrow, “Nothing? Really? You always brood at a window when you’re sad,”

Wilbur’s shoulders drop, he groans, “Sally, I don’t think now is the time to talk about-”

“Nonsense!” she snaps her fingers, “c’mon, to the window!” she walks past him.

He sighs and turns around to follow her. She reaches into his pocket and pulls out the crumpled-up piece of paper, Sally smoothes out the wrinkles as best she can and starts reading it. He rolls his eyes and looks out the window, he can see a shadow moving across the land, probably another wild animal.

“Is this what’s got you so upset?” Sally interrupts his thoughts.

“Yes, but it’s nothing to worry about,”

Sally hums and side-eyes him, he sighs.

“It’s just,” he paused, wanting to find the right words, “I sent a little to him about a month ago, maybe more,” he stuffs his hand into his pockets, “and he never… referenced it? Like, he never really responded to anything in my letter, he did even mention you!” Wilbur takes a hand out of his pocket and it flies up to his head and messes with his hair, “I was planning to visit him but I don’t know anymore,”

The woman next to him puts her hand on his arm to comfort him, “Well, he did say he was busy,” she says. He hates that, he hates that excuse, “That’s no excuse,” he says.

Sally sighs, “I know, just,” she pauses, “keep it in mind” she walks back to the bed and climbs in. Wilbur watches her, he looks around the room for a few minutes when he hears her soft snores. He laughs quietly to himself and looks back out the window.

He looks back towards the van, the door is slightly ajar and the light from inside is on, he thinks he sees movement.

“Aw, _shit_.”

\---

“Hey, Techno, what do you think of this color?” Phil says.

Technoblade looks over his shoulder at Phil and the cloth he is holding. It’s a nice light blue that would complete nicely with white. Phil has some dark red on his desk that covers some of his designs. Techno can see the design for a flag under it.

“I think it looks nice, actually,” the piglin says as he walks to get a closer look.

Phil nods, “Yep, I thought so too,” he places it on the table and takes some of the papers off to look at them.

Techno looks too, “You should probably get a tailor to make them,” he says.

“Yes, I know,” Phil says after a moment, “I don’t know any though,”

“There’s got to be at least one that’s in the group outside,” Techno responds, “How are they doing anyway?”

Phil sighs, “They’re doing fine,” he says, “they have enough food and water, they’ve already started building the houses,”

“Can’t believe how quickly this happened,” the piglin says after a minute, “we’re not letting the power ever go to our heads, right Phil?”

Phil turns around to look at him in the eyes, “Of course not,” he goes to put a hand on Techno’s shoulder but it lands on his arm instead, “we’ll stick with each other until the end too,”

Technoblade sighs in relief, “We should go help the people settle in,” he says as he looks out the window. Phil laughs and makes sure that nothing will fall off his desk, “Yes, let’s go,”

They open the door and the blistering cold hits them in their faces.

\---

_A man in a mask watches as a rockslide crushes someone in a blue shirt, he should help them. He will save them, don’t worry, just not yet. ___

__

__\---_ _

__

__A man in a blue shirt lays under fallen rocks, he is bleeding out, he will surely die. His ears are filled with static. He does not want to die._ _

__

__H̵̡̫̼̆̅̄ė̸̯͙͐ ̷̖̚W̵̰̞̣̉̄̈ȋ̸̖̂͠l̶̡̪̙̉̐l̵͎͈͕̃̈́ ̴̱̠̫̽̋̐N̶̨͙͋͆͠o̴̤̎̊̑t̸̟ ̵̛̫͒D̵͈͉͌ĭ̶͕̙̦ë̶̬̳́̽͘.̶͍̺̋_ _

__

__\---_ _

__

__“Come back here!” a woman yells._ _

__

__A little half-demon with a broken horn scurries away into a forest, desperate to get away. The people in the town try and fail to chase after him._ _

__

__\---_ _

__

__“What the fuck are you doing in my van??” a man in a beanie yells at a child._ _

__

__“Uh, well, you see, it’s actually very funny-” a blonde-haired, blue-eyed, crime child says in response._ _

__

__\---_ _

__

__“Your majesty!” a woman yells as a winged man approaches her, she goes to kneel before he lifts a hand to stop her. She slowly stands up._ _

__

__“Not that I don’t appreciate it but,” he says, “I’ve heard you’re a tailor?”_ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope you enjoyed that!!! the 2 year time skip hasn't happened yet, it will between this chapter and the next one. this chapter was a way to set up the timeline better uuuuuhh ok idk what to say here.
> 
> give a kudos and/or comment if you like this, they help me with my motivation :)


	14. what a wonderful world

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two years later, an Empire has risen, along with other people.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> omg!!! new chapter with new characters!!
> 
> ok so a little "warning" before we start:
> 
> there is a trans character in this BUT this chapter takes place when he is a baby, before he transitions. he goes by a different name but if you want to refer to him use he/him pronouns. ok, i think that's it.
> 
> uuuummm ok, i hope you enjoy!
> 
> (chapter title is from "what a wonderful world" by louis armstrong)

Technoblade and Philza look at the castle that has been built by their people. The town that surrounds spreads across the snowy landscape. Instead of lanterns or torches, fire, that is contained, of course, lines the street to melt the snow and drive away mobs.

If Techno strains his eyes enough, he could see the strays that stalk outside the gates. Iron golem guards stand outside, daring them to come close enough. Some golem guards roam the streets, making sure people feel safe.

In the center of town, a statue sits. Not of themselves, but of the Ender-dragon, protecting her egg. Phil had it commissioned when some of the sculptures wouldn’t stop bothering him about making a statue of him and Techno, he refused at first, but they eventually came to a compromise.

The houses are made out of spruce wood from a nearby forest. The castle is made out of stone bricks, and some prismarine. None of the windows can open, they didn’t want that as an option in case the wind from outside ever forced them open.

The castle was built above the stronghold. There are cells that lay under the castle, under those is the stronghold. It is still a maze, the portal room is opened, although no one can visit. It is blocked off. If you stayed in the prison cells long enough, you might be able to hear the swirling of the portal or the bubbling of the lava. Nobody is down there, of course, those are only for the criminals that actually pose a danger to the people, which is rare.

The town sits in the middle of Antarctica, the castle sits in the center of the town. Antarctica is surrounded by water, which was a slight problem for travel. Since people were scared of the Nether, they needed a way of transportation. There is a very, very, long bridge that connects their land to the rest of the world. It has a railroad that goes back and forth between the two continents. People can walk across it, or perhaps drive if they have that kind of technology.

There is a gravel pathway that goes from the gates to the bridge. It is not lit up with torches, so it is very hazardous to traverse in the dark. Some people prefer to use the ships that sometimes will travel to the pier on the other side of the continent. There is another path that travels from the back gate to the edge of the water. Trade between Kingdoms and countries happens about every week, which the Techno and Phil are grateful for.

_Yes_ , Technoblade thinks as he looks out the window, _this empire will be great._

\---

Tommy looks over the fox in the crib. Well, a crib would be a nice name for it, it’s more like Will had put together a lot of pillows and blankets on the couch and called it a day. Most people would think it is very weird that a fox baby would be the biological child of a mermaid and a human, but, according to Wilbur, anything is possible with magic.

Wilbur put him on watch duty since he had to drive the van. He thinks that putting a 9-year-old on the watch of what is basically a newborn, give or take a few months. A part of him wishes that Sally never had to ~~die~~ leave and let a man with daddy issues and a very angry 9-year-old.

“Hey, Tommy,” Wilbur yells from the front seat to him, “is Fenix alright?”

“Yeah,” he calls back.

Wilbur goes silent and Tommy can hear the engine the van rumbling. He looks down at Fenix, she looks up at him with her golden eyes, he leans over her slightly and she reaches for his hair, he pulls away. Her tail swishes, he doesn’t know if it is out of annoyance or out of happiness. He reaches his hand out to touch her fur, she moves her head against his hand. She is dressed in a baby blue onesie, Sally had gotten it at a village before…

Just… before.

He hears the engine of the van turn off and the footsteps of Wilbur walking towards him. “Is she alright?” he asks again. Tommy replies in an annoyed tone, “Yes! I already told you,”

Wilbur sighs and sits down on the couch, he picks up Fenix and holds her in his arms. He is wearing a white shirt under a black coat, so the light blue contrasts against it. Tommy takes this opportunity to look out the window, he notices that the sky has taken on an orange hue, he can see the sun lowering below the horizon. If he looks long enough his eyes will start to hurt, he looks away.

Wilbur has a small smile on his face, he is still looking down at the small fox. Tommy has a very old memory from a long, long, time ago. He remembers being held like Fenix is right now, looking up at his father, or his mother, he can’t remember their face. He used to yearn for that kind of touch, that kind of love, that… kind of family. He does not wish for it anymore, he raised himself, and he always will.

Eventually, the sky darkens, and Fenix starts to yawn. Despite being a fox, who usually sleeps during the day, Fenix seems to need sleep just like any regular human. Tommy sees Wilbur still smiling, he stands up and starts rocking Fenix back and forth. Her eyes close and she falls asleep. Wilbur settles her back down into the make-shift crib.

Tommy looks down at the small fox and then back up at Wilbur, “Do I have to stay up and watch her all night?”

Wilbur laughs quietly, “No, you should be going to bed anyway,” he says

Tommy crosses his arms and definitely does _not_ pout.

Wilbur laughs loudly before slapping a hand over his mouth, his giggles are muffled, and Tommy wants to yell and scream and curse at him so bad, but he doesn’t want to wake Fenix up.

Wilbur stops giggling after a moment, “You should probably go to bed soon,”

Uh oh, yeah, no, Tommy does not want to do that. He has to change the subject, uuuhhh, what’s a good subject? Hmmm. Oh, he knows what.

“You still get letters from your dear old dad?” Tommy says.

Wilbur sighs and runs a hand through his hair, “Yeah, I do, I’m still responding to them too,” he pauses, “just not in the way that I used to,”

“I still don’t know why you don’t just visit the guy,” Tommy says after they stew in silence for a moment.

The man next to him scoffs, “it’s not that simple Tommy,” he flails his arm around, “if I did I’d have to actually talk to him and I don’t think I’m ready for that...” he trails off.

Tommy’s arms are crossed, “Well I wanna meet him! I wanna see the guy who raised someone who is practically my brother!”

He swears he sees Wilbur tear up for a moment, “Do not say that, I will cry.”

Tommy laughs, but too loudly, “Seriously, Wilbur,” he says, “I really want to meet him, he sounds cool,”

“Maybe in a bit of time but,” Wilbur says as he stands up, “ _you_ ” he points to Tommy, “need to go to bed”

“Awww, what??” Tommy says, “but I can’t go to sleep, I’m a crime child, I never sleep!” he whines.

“You can be a crime child in the morning, c’mon,” Wilbur grabs a spare sleeping bag and places it on the floor.

Tommy groans in defeat, Wilbur just laughs.

\---

Currently, Skeppy is running through the forest. The diamond box he usually wears is long gone, it is probably back where he came from, but going in that direction is very impossible right now.

“Get back here!” someone behind him yells.

He starts to run faster.

He doesn’t know where Bad is right now, they got separated a while ago. He hopes he finds him soon. This is one of the reasons why he even summoned a demon in the first place, besides wanting a friend. Skeppy jumps over a fallen tree and keeps running, the hunters behind him are still yelling and chasing him. He’s reaching the edge of the forest, he’ll hit the mountain the looms over them soon, maybe there’s a cave.

Skeppy runs along the bottom of the mountain, looking for a cave entrance, he better find one or he’s fucked. He can hear the hunters getting closer, he keeps running. He looks up and down for an entrance but he can’t find one. He keeps going until he almost runs into a hunter that is standing in front of him.

The person is a cat mob they have blue eyes, and their pupils are tiny, they’re wearing a dark green coat, and their tail is whipping back in forth. The other two hunters catch up while the cat is holding an iron sword to his throat.

“You got ‘em?” asked the blonde man in a white sweatshirt, he also had a necklace on.

“Yeah,” the cat says in response.

There is a third person but he can’t tell what they look like, because of their mask, although their voice is feminine, “Finally,” she says, “it feels like we’ve been chasing him forever,”

“If you were chasing me forever, you’d never catch me,” Skeppy says in response. The only reply he gets is the cat pushing the sword harder against his throat. “Ooh, kinky,” he says.

“Can I kill him.” the cat mob says, their ear twitching.

“No,” the blonde man says as he turns he back to them and walks away, “we need him alive,”

Skeppy rolls his eyes a the mob ties his hands behind his back and pokes him with the sword, “Hey! Watch it!” he says.

They walk for a bit, Skeppy is already getting bored so he starts to hum. The hunters obviously do not appreciate “You are my sunshine” so he keeps humming it louder. If he does it for long enough and loud enough, maybe Bad will be able to hear him.

It has probably been at least an hour, maybe two, since he got captured, he’s starting to get nervous. He wonders for a moment if Bad had just left him, but then he remembers that Bad is a demon, and they are very possessive over what is theirs.

The sun is starting to set and the world gets darker when the group hears a low growl. Skeppy recognizes it, he knows it because sometimes Bad would growl in his sleep like he was protecting something. Skeppy always found it sweet but right now, it sounds terrifying. He wants to yell out but the hunters had long since silenced him with a piece of cloth. 

The hunters tense up, “What was that?” the mob says. If Skeppy could laugh, he would.

“It’s just a wild animal, c’mon,” the, what Skeppy assumes to be, leader says, and he starts to walk quicker.

The sky gets darker and so does the forest. Skeppy thinks he sees movement out of the corner of his eye, he stops walking and stares at the bush. The woman behind him pokes her sword into his back harder, he makes a sound that %100 is _not_ a whimper.

“Keep moving,” she says. He stays still for another moment before reluctantly moving on. It’s a few more minutes until the group hears movement again, Skeppy feels hope. The woman who was holding the sword against his back moves away to look around them. He could take this opportunity to run away but there are two other people that have weapons that are standing in front of him.

“We are being followed,” the woman says.

“Really?” says the cat.

The man wearing the white sweatshirt sighs, “If we were, don’t you think they’d attack by now?”

The woman is getting more frantic by the second, “Maybe they’re just waiting for the perfect moment to-” She gets interrupted by a dark figure tackling her to the ground, they fall into the bushes. Skeppy books it. He runs past the two people fighting on the ground, the two other hunters try and chase after him. He can hear the woman struggle before her scream is cut off by the demon ripping out her throat, the blood splatters on the ground. He keeps running, he looks back and sees the two hunters gaining on him. He runs faster.

Skeppy, against all odds, trips, because he did not look where he was going.

The man wearing a white sweatshirt stands over him with a diamond sword, which is very not good, but he gets knocked off his feet by Bad pushing him. They fall to the ground and Bad’s claws aim for the man’s neck, but he moves his head and they nick his cheek instead. They wrestle for a few moments before the demon gets knocked off by the cat mob.

“We have to go!” they yell.

“No!” the man with the blonde hair says, “I can take them”

“No you can’t,” the mob pulls the man away farther into the forest.

Bad watches them go and growls at them, his face is dripping with red. Skeppy wants to comfort him but he can’t do much with his hands tied and his mouth gagged. He stands up and walks over to Bad, he makes a muffled noise to gain his attention. Bad’s head snaps to him and growls before realizing who he is looking at.

“Skeppy?” the demon asks in a small voice, he nods in response. Bad stands up to untie him, his mouth is dry when Bad removes the gag and he rubs his wrists.

“Are you okay?” Bad asks after a moment.

Skeppy sighs and keeps rubbing his wrists a bit, he can feel the diamonds growing over the raw skin already, “I’m fine, just a little shaken,”

Bad tries to wipe the blood off his face but ends up smearing it and making it worse, “I can’t believe I did that,” he says awkwardly.

“I don’t know man,” Skeppy replies, “I thought it was pretty hot,”

The demon blushes, “S-SKEPPY DON’T SAY THAT!!” he yells and slaps the diamond man’s arm, Skeppy laughs. Eventually, Bad joins in on laughing. They giggle for a few more minutes until they stop to catch their breath.

“Okay, but seriously, how are we gonna get into town looking like this?” a diamond man says to a demon.

“Um…”

\---

“Techno, take a look at this,” Phil says one day while handing Techno a letter. He opens it and finds out it is a letter from a kingdom that owns the land on the other side of their bridge. The piglin hums as he reads over it, he currently has his glasses on so reading it is easier.

“They’re angry about the bridge?” he asks after a moment.

“Yes,” Phil responds, “they want to go to war, apparently,”

“Let them then,” he stands up out of his throne, “we will go to war,”

“Really??” Phil says in an excited voice, “I guess we could use the land..” he trails off.

Techno nods and fixes his crown, it has dark and light blue gems made to represent the cold and snow of Antarctica, “We have a military, what good does it do if we do not use it?”

Phil laughs, “I’ll go right the declaration,” he runs off to his library.

“We could always use more land…” Techno says to an empty room. For a moment, he thinks of the little town in an oak forest he ran through about 2 years ago. He pushes the thought away, this is the right thing to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope you enjoyed that!! leave a comment and/or kudos if you did, they help with my motivation.
> 
> fundy and tommy join the roster! fundy is trans in this fic and this chapter takes place before he transitions, if you have any problems with how this is portrayed please tell me! he will be referred to with she/her pronouns (in the chapters) for now BUT that changes later.
> 
> uuummm ok bye.


	15. pump your veins with gushing gold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wilbur sends a letter, Technoblade begins training, and Phil continues to be a bad dad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi lol uuuuh this chapter is mostly just me figuring stuff out with formatting sooo tell me if it looks go or not. uuuuhhhh anyways i hope you enjoy
> 
> (chapter title is from "black mambo" by glass animals)

_Dear His Majesty, Philza Minecraft,_

_Hello, It is me, Wilbur, writing to you again. I want to keep this short so, I will get right to it._

_During my travels, I met a young ~~boy~~ **man** named Tommy. He is nice but ~~can also be a bit rude at times.~~ **is also a very very BIG MAN!!** He calls me his brother, which I wish I could say the same but… I don’t think I’m ready for that. Not after…_

_Anyway, I wanted to send a letter because Tommy really wants to meet you. Soon, I will be coming to visit. I’ve heard you’ve made the old stronghold in the mountain into a Kingdom now, or was it an Empire? I cannot remember but I guess I will see you when we get there, yes?_

_I want to meet this Technoblade character, you said he was a piglin? Interesting. I’ll have to see if he’s a good role model for you, heh. I think that’s all I need to tell you._

_Phil, (should I call you a king now?) in the next few days I will be visiting you. I will be there soon. Oh, almost forgot, someone else wants to visit you too, someone other than Tommy, but that will be a surprise. Hopefully, you will get this letter, I’m guessing as a king you have a lot on your plate? Okay, this letter is longer than I expected it to be, I have to get to driving now, I will see you soon._

_From,_

_Wilbur ~~Mine~~ Soot_

\---

Philza Minecraft, co-ruler of the Antarctic Empire reads over the letter. He knows he should respond but he is really busy right now. He has already written the Declaration of War and peer-reviewed it with Techno, the letter has been sent but he still needed to be prepared. 

They needed to gather the military and tell the people that they were preparing for war. He had a bit too much on his plate right now. He’ll put the letter away for later, he won’t forget about it.

Hopefully.

\---

Somewhere, across the world, a group of three builds a house.

\---

It is early in the morning, the sun has just gone over the horizon, the darkness of the night is still fading away. Tommy is asleep on a sleeping bag, Fenix is asleep on the couch in her make-shift crib. 

Wilbur wants to desperately look back at them to make sure they are alright, even if he just checked, but he has to keep his eyes on the road. He didn’t sleep that much last night, even if he should have. 

His eyes start to droop but he opens them quickly and sits up straight. He can’t have the car crash, not now. Wilbur still has to cover more ground to cover.

He should pull over now, he really can’t have the car crash, especially with this precious cargo. Wilbur looks out the windshield to find a place to park, the spruce trees are tall but there are a lot of them. He doesn’t want to park on the road.

Eventually, he finds a small opening to park in. He maneuvers the van in a parking position and gets out of the seat. He should probably sleep now, Tommy will be awake soon and start pestering him. 

Maybe if he sees Will asleep he won’t bother him. He grabs another sleeping bag from the closet and places it quietly on the floor. The sky no longer has an orange hue to it, he should get to sleep.

He dreams of a sword, wings, and an explosion.

\---

“What are you doing?” a mask says.

“I’m trying,” black and white glasses replies, “to see which flower is red,”

He is starting at two flowers, a rose, and some pink flower that the masked man can’t remember what the name of it is.

“It’s that one,” the masked man says as he points to the rose.

“Dream!” glasses yells at Dream, who just laughs, “Why’d you do that???”

Dream laughs harder and that laugh turns into a wheeze, he falls to the ground next to the man wearing glasses, “Geeooorgee” he drags out the syllables.

George slaps his arm, which makes Dream somehow wheeze and laughs even harder, “You suck,” George says

“You swallow,” Dream replies.

George makes a face, “Why would you say that…?”

Dream laughs harder.

“GUYS!” a voice echoes across the field, “get over here!”

The duo looks toward the sound, they see the third of their party, a half-demon wearing a bandanna. They look at each other for a second and laugh before standing up and walking towards their friends.

“We’re coming, Sapnap! Just wait,” Dream yells to him.

“Ooh, you’re coming, huh?” Sapnap says in response.

“Shut up!”

He just hears him laugh.

\---

Technoblade stands on top of the wall that over-looks the training yard. The ground is covered in salt, to make sure that any snow there melts. The ground is dry, it is dried at the start of every hour. 

When he looks down at Phil talking to the guards training, some look up at him. He should be walking down there soon, he needs to work on training the guards soon.

He can hear Phil stalling, he feels bad, slightly, so he walks inside and down the stairs. He opens the door to the training yard and walks inside. The dark red cape he wears is short but it still flows slightly in the cold wind. 

The guards are wearing chainmail under their thick jackets, he can tell by the sound they make as they move.

“Ah! There he is!” Phil says to the guards as he walks through the door.

Technoblade is regarded as someone unbeatable in his Kingdom, he does not know what his reputation is out of it but it is possible it is the same. The trainees and experience guards look at him with respect, part of him hates it, another part revels in it, he listens to the latter.

Phil leaves him with instructions to train them, he says that most of them already know how to fight. Phil gives him a face and walks away.

Technoblade sighs as he walks away, he turns his back to Phil and looks at the guard in front of him. He sees a few mobs in the crowd, good. He hears the door behind him close, the sound echoes around the yard.

The piglin sighs, “Alright, listen up nerds.” he says.

\---

“CUDDLE WITH ME!!!” a half-demon yells.

“No!!!” a man in a mask replies.

“Shut the Fuck UP!!” a man wearing glasses yells back.

\---

A little boy in a box with goat horns sits in a box inside the walls of a cold Empire, he holds his bee plushies tightly, he doesn’t want to lose it. Mr. Ram (that’s what the man told him to call him, a few years ago) said that he needs to stay here until someone comes and finds him. The front of the box says his name, “Tubbo”.

He feels cold.

\---

“-ke up!”

“-e up!”

“-up!”

“WAKE UP!” someone says as they jump on his chest.

“GAH! W-WHAT THE FUCK??!?!!” Wilbur yells.

“Finally, you’re awake,” Tommy says.

Wilbur’s eyes adjust to the light, he can see Tommy standing over him. He knocks him off and the child makes an “oof” noise. “What the shit, Tommy??” he asks in a groggy voice.

“You took forever to wake up!” he says, “it’s not my fault you are old.”

“I am not old!” Wilbur argues.

Tommy just crosses his arms and looks away. Wilbur crawls out of the sleeping bag and starts to put it away, he notices that Tommy’s is already in the closet and smiles. He hears Fenix behind him start to cry and turns around to address the issue.

“Why is she crying?” he asks.

Tommy turns to glare at him, “I don’t know!”

Wilbur moves to the couch to pick her up. He doesn’t have to get too close to her to know what is wrong.

“Oh,” he says and picks her up.

“Wh-” Tommy starts but quickly covers his nose when he figures it out, “eww!!”

“Oh, shut up, will you?” Wilbur says as he starts to walk to the back of the van. He can still hear Tommy complaining. He is still slightly tired.

\---

“We’re going to have to move now,” a diamond man says to his best friend.

A demon sighs, “Yes, I know,” he grabs a bag from his closet.

Skeppy leans on the door, he still doesn’t have his diamond box, he’ll have to make a new one. It will take a while since he needs to find his knife again, he can’t remember where he put it. He watches as Bad folds some of his clothes and packs them neatly into the bag. 

The demon doesn’t have his hood up, so Skeppy can see his pointed ears and hair better. Sometimes they twitch, reacting to the sound around them. A part of him really wants to touch them but he knows that Bad doesn’t like physical contact too much, so he doesn’t.

“Skeppy, you should get packing too,” Bad says, breaking Skeppy out of his thoughts.

“Uuh, y-yeah, I’ll go do that,” he says, he sees Bad’s ears twitch again.

He walks to his own room and pulls out his own bag. He throws some clothes in the bag carelessly, he grabs a few keepsakes too. He doesn’t really know what else to put in, he realizes that they probably should pack some food and water. He starts walking out of his room when he is stopped.

“What are you doing?” Bad says, Skeppy is turned away from him but he probably has his hands on his hips.

“Going to the kitchen,” he says as he turns around to look at him.

“I told you to pack,” the demon says as he crosses his arms, he still has his hood off.

Skeppy hums, “I already did!”

Bad does one of his little growls, “Please tell him you didn’t just stuff all your clothes in your bag,”

The diamond man looks anywhere but Bad, “...no…”

“Go back and fold it properly,” he points into Skeppy’s room, “I’ll sort out the food part,’

Skeppy groans, Bad does care and walks right by him. Skeppy gets to urge to pet his ears again.

\---

Wilbur can see a bridge in the distance, the city they had just driven past looked like they were getting ready for a battle. Tommy yells as they get closer to the bridge, Wilbur smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uuuuuuuuuuhhhh, yeah! i hope you enjoyed that, if you did leave a kudos and/or comment because they help with my motivation. 
> 
> ALSO you may have notice the tags change a bit thats because i've read a lot of fics about phil being immortal and i realized it would also work better with the timeline if he was immortal sooooo um ok bye.


	16. tell the crows they can have their pound of flesh

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wilbur arrives in the Antarctic Empire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (chapter title from "the garden" by the crane wives)

A few days later, a van drives across a bridge. The bridge is covered in snow in some areas, sometimes the van skirts a bit because of the ice. The sun is in the middle of the sky so the man driving can see the road. A young boy stands next to the driver’s seat, he yells something about how he finally gets to meet the Angel of Death.

Wilbur is worried about who, or what, he will meet.

\---

Phil is watching Technoblade fight with the trainees in the courtyard. He is having a one on one with a student because he keeps failing. The poor boy is terrified, the intimidating piglin, being about 6 ft tall, isn’t helping at all. Phil wants to laugh, but he can’t. At the rate they are going at, they will never be ready for war.

The boy is holding a wooden sword, he is shaking. Technoblade is also holding a similar wooden sword, he is in a fighting stance. Phil cannot hear it from here, but he is certain that Technoblade sighs as he stands up straight and walks over to the cowering boy. He takes the sword out of his hand and Technoblade places his own hand on the kid’s shoulder, he tells him something that Phil cannot hear. The boy nods and walks away, Technoblade watches him as he leaves through the door.

What.

Phil opens his wings and leaps off the wall, he flaps his wings as he flies down to meet with the piglin. His landing is rough and Technoblade flinches when he touches down.

“What was that?” he says quickly.

“What was what?” Technoblade replies, just as fast.

Phil is starting to get annoyed, “What did you say to that boy?”

The piglin sighs, “I told him to go home,”

“..Just for the day, or...?” Phil asks, confused.

“For good,” he says, “I told him that he wasn’t ready for war and told him to go home,”

Phil stands there dumbfounded for a moment, “Why?”

“Heh??” Technoblade responds, “What do you mean, “why”?? You were watching, you saw why!” he raises his voice.

“But we need the extra soldiers!” Phil argues, “We need to win this!”

“And we will!” Technoblade replies back.

“You don’t know that!” the blonde man points an accessory finger in the piglin’s face, his crown is crooked, “What if we need another person?” he starts, “What if we don’t win this? What if we just needed one more person but then you let that one person go?! What if-” Phil was cut off by Technoblade putting his hands on Phil’s shoulders.

“Phil!” he yells, “you’re spiraling,”

Oh, was that why it was getting harder to breathe? Phil takes a second to breathe, inhaling and exhaling. After a few moments of this, Phil wipes at his eyes, when did he start tearing up?

“I..” he starts, “I’m sorry,” he says finally.

Techno sighs, “it’s okay,” he says, “I think you’re a bit stressed out,”

“Yeah,” he breathes, “yeah I think I am,”

“You should probably go and rest,” Techno says, he only has one hand on Phil’s shoulder now.

“But there’s so much work to do today!” Phil argues, “I still have to-”

Techno interrupts him, “I don’t care, you need to sleep,” he says, “I know how late you stay up,”

Phil sighs and nods, his eyes drift to the ground, “You’re… right,"

“Of course I am!” Techno says, “I’m THE Technoblade,”

Phil laughs at his friend. Techno’s right, he really should take a nap. It would do him some good to sleep right now, “Are you going to be okay by yourself?” he asks.

“Yes, Phil,” Techno says, “I will be fine. Besides, nothing big is supposed to happen today anyway, right?”

The winged man nods, “If anything big _does_ happen, wake me, alright?”

Techno hums, “...maybe,”

Phil hits him on the shoulder, not enough to hurt obviously, but it makes him laugh. Phil backs up slightly before waving and flying away, he looks down at Techno from the sky, he waves back. He yawns as he lands on the walkway that leads into the castle, he opens the doors and closes them when he gets inside. The guards salute him as he passes, he waves a hand and they stop.

When he lands on his bed, he falls asleep immediately.

\---

So it turns out driving through snow is not a great idea. You can slip on ice or the wind can move your van around as you try to drive in a straight line. Add to the fact that it is night time and that’s when strays start to come out.

The raggedy skeletons cannot see him through the car, so when he drives past them sometimes he will hit one. It is not a fun experience. The bones explode and the cloth sometimes gets stuck on the hood of the van. But it is fine, it’s fine; Wilbur certainly thinks so, as he runs another stray over. 

“WATCH WHERE YOU ARE _FUCKING_ GOING!” Tommy yells from the back, holding onto Fenix.

“IT IS HARD TO DO THAT WHEN I BASICALLY HAVE _FUCKING_ BLINDNESS!” Wilbur yells back.

“ _FUCK YOU_!!”

So, they keep driving.

It is not fun driving in the dark when there is snow falling, but Wilbur makes it work. The ice makes for quick ways to avoid the skeletons, the only downside being that it would knock things down inside the van. Tommy keeps yelling at him whenever he does, maybe he should slow the van down.

He slows it down, which is good because he is pretty sure the gate is coming up soon. He can see the gate slightly after a few minutes, the golem guards stationed outside look at him in confusion. He sits there, waiting until the gate opens and two regular guards emerge from it and walk towards his vehicle. They knock on the door, Wilbur grabs his heavy coat out of the closet before he answers.

“Will,” a small voice says.

“What?” Wilbur turns to Tommy, who is holding Fenix.

“Where are you going??” Tommy asks in a frantic tone.

Will sighs, “I need to talk to the guards, I’ll be right back,”

Tommy opens his mouth to respond before he is interrupted by the door being knocked on again. Wilbur turns away from him and opens the door.

“Hello gentlemen,” he says in a sweet voice.

“State your name and purpose,” one of them says.

“Straight to the point, I see,” Wilbur rubs his chin in thought, “I’m here to visit family,”

The other guard looks at him with suspicion, “What family?” he says.

Wilbur smiles, “My father, of course!”

“What is your full name?” the first guard asks.

“My name…” Wilbur hesitates, does he use his legal name or…? “Wilbur Soot,” he says and the second guard starts to walk away to no doubt look through files, “but, you might have better luck with my other name…”

“And what is that?” the second guard asks him.

He hesitates for a moment, “... Wilbur Minecraft,”

He gets two swords pointed at him in less than a second.

\---

Technoblade is currently looking through Phil’s study. Phil is usually a very organized man, but Techno guesses that since he has been very stressed out recently. The piglin flips through the many half-written letters, he should touch those. He puts them all into a pile on the edge of the desk. He looks over some laws that need signing, some things that the advisors sent to Phil. He signs most of those, although he’ll check in with Phil tomorrow before he sends them back. Some are requests to build statues, some are asking permission to build more houses or to expand the gates. They do not have time for these things right now so he says no and opens a drawer to put them away for later.

Before he puts the signed documents away, he spies a single piece of paper in the drawer. He pulls it out to keep the desk organized and his eyes glance at the top of the page.

“ _Dear, His Majesty, Philza Minecraft,_ ”

Okay, well judging how it is not also addressed to him means that this is probably a personal letter. He should read it but.. curiosity killed that cat. He reads the rest of the letter, the person signs with a name very familiar to Techno. He thinks for a minute before remembering the time where Phil had told him about his son and how he raised him in the arctic. That was about two years ago now, Techno smiles.

He puts the letter in the pile that is already sat on the desk and tucks away the signed documents in the drawer. He leans back against the chair, his crown is sitting on the desk. He should probably get ready to sleep soon, it is getting late.

Techno stands up and accidentally bumps the table, sending the once neat pile of letters spilling onto the floor.

“Aw, _shit_ ,” He says as he tries to pick up the scattered papers. He is making some progress but then drops them again when the door to the study is slammed open.

“Your Majesty!” a guard yells. Technoblade just glares.

The shrink slightly,”I-I’m sorry for bothering you,” they say, “but there is someone requesting King Philza’s presence and I know you requested we do not bother him today.”

Technoblade sighs, and picks up as many papers as he can before putting them on the desk, but not in the pile it used to be in. He grabs his crown and sets it on his head.

“Alright,” he says, “lead me to them,”

\---

Technoblade walks to his throne, it is made out of gold with red cushions to be comfortable. The throne beside him, on his right, Phil’s throne, is empty. He leans back slightly as a few guards escort a small group into the room. In the front, a man in a beanie and a large coat stands with his head held high, except his eyes look as if he is more annoyed than proud. A younger boy walks slightly behind him, his head held in the same position as the first one, he looks more confident than the beanie man, but the facade is slightly ruined when Techno notices the baby in his arms.

“Kneel before the King,” a guard bellows, and the blonde boy immediately drops to the ground, making room for the baby, of course, the beanie-wearing man stays standing.

“I thought you said we were meeting with King Philza?” he says to one of the guards.

The soldier goes to respond but Technoblade beats them to it, “King Philza is otherwise occupied at the moment, any issue you have can be taken up with me,”

The blonde child, no longer kneeling, responds to that in the most elegant way possible, “What? Is he taking a shit or something?”

Techno can see the man wearing the beanie give an icy glare towards the child, he shuts up.

The one wearing a beanie steps forward, “I claim to be Philza Minecraft’s son, Wilbur Minecraft, or Soot as I go by now, I wish to speak with him,”

His son? Oh, yes. Technoblade remembers Phil talked to him about it.

( _”You have a kid?” Technoblade asks._

_Phil laughs, “Yes! I do! I think he is around 16… or no! 17, yes 17…”_

_“Hmm,” the piglin hums._

_“You’d probably get along with him, he is a very sweet boy,” Phil gushes._

_“..maybe,”_

_“Oh, don’t be so stand-offish!” Phils hits him lightly on the shoulder._

_They both laugh._ )

“Hmm,” Techno hums and closes his eyes in thought, “yes King Philza talked about that once,” He opens his eyes and move forward, leaning his head against his hand, “Do you have any proof?” he asks.

“I..” Wilbur starts, “I have letters from him,”

Well, that lines of with the letter from him in Phil’s desk.

“And,” Techno asks, mostly just in spite, “you have these on you?”

“Oh, uh-” he stutters, “T-they’re in my van, I just-”

“Don’t have time for that,” Techno says quickly, “guards, take him away!” he waves his hand.

“W-WAIT! NO STOP” He yells.

Techno gives it a few moments before he laughs, the guards stop to look at him in confusion. He bangs his hand against the armrest, still laughing. Eventually, he calms down and catches his breath.

“I’m kidding! I’m kidding,” Technoblade says, “I know who you are Wilbur Soot, I’ve seen the letters,” that’s not technically a lie, he has seen one letter, “but who is the child next to you holding a baby?”

“Oh, that’s,” Wilbur starts but is interrupted by the boy speaking.

“I’m TommyInnit!” he points at himself, “I’m Wilbur’s b-”

“Ward. He’s my ward,” Wilbur says.

Techno can hear the boy make a small “what?” at what Wilbur says, but he brushes past it. He walks down the stairs and gets face to face with the man, “I’m sorry that Phil cannot be here right now, he is resting,” Techno says.

Wilbur’s eyes widened, “He’s not hurt, is he?”

“No, no,” the piglin waves a hand, “he is just tired. Now, follow me, you’re probably tired right?”

Wilbur nods at the same time that Tommy yells “yes!”, the baby in his arms is a fox mob, he notices. Weird.

Wilbur and Tommy follow Technoblade farther into the castle, Wilbur is suspicious, Tommy is excited, and Fenix is a baby.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uh oh... looks like phil is getting stressed. on the other hand, wilbur and techno finally meet!
> 
> i hope you enjoy that, if you did leave a kudos/and or comment, they help with my motivation.


End file.
